The Golden Age
by JosieVang2
Summary: Britain is in ashes. Ruins ruled over by Voldemort. Vanessa Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley are going to change all that in the only way left to them: travel back in time, together, and change the future. It started with the three of them, and it's going to RESTART with the three of them. Fem!Harry! Please review!
1. Chapter 1

In the year 2016, in the crumbled, eternally burning wasteland that was London, Vanessa Potter, thirty-six, raced down alleys, through half-standing buildings, until she came at last to the one she was seeking. A ten-story structure, once a place of business, but now...now her tool. Her object. Her...weapon. Speaking of...

Vanessa navigated up through the building to the top floor, knelt before a still whole window, through which she was granted a complete and unobstructed view down a wide boulevard that was positively infested with giants, and at the far end of which was a high, sprawling black tower with many, massive spikes sticking out of it in a way that reminded her of a peacock's tail, and withdrew out of the pocket of her jeans jacket an object that, by all rights, should not have been able to fit in there: a sniper rifle. But, of course, it was no ordinary weapon; it possessed endless ammunition, which could be (and had been) charmed with many different...affects. The scope was magically enchanted to zoom in, peer through any number of walls or other solid objects, and even highlight targets in a magical glow, as per Vanessa's very thoughts.

"Remember, first shot you put them on the alert, second shot you give yourself away. If you keep firing after that, you're an idiot."

Vanessa, in position, sighted up, and rifle supported by the sill, shot a fierce grin at the impossibly gorgeous, winged and glowing, five inch tall woman who was standing on the sill and leaning against the window frame with one outstretched arm.

"Thanks, Mynne, but no thanks, because you know what? I really don't think I need warfare tips from a fairy." Vanessa replied, with a shake of her dark red ponytail.

Mynne casually unholstered the Mynne-sized golden handgun strapped to her upper thigh, and held it up to glimmer in the morning sun streaming in through the window which she occupied, a grin just as fierce as Vanessa's on her tiny face. "I think my friend here would disagree with you on that."

"Hey!" Vanessa scolded. "Put that away! If _this_ ," She nodded in indication of her rifle. "doesn't get their attention, _that_ definitely will." On "that", she gave the tiny golden firearm a glare.

"Oh, fine." Mynne pouted, holstering her weapon. "But just so you know, after you miss, I'm going to start firing too."

"I'm not going to miss." Vanessa said flatly, looking down the magically enhanced scope of her rifle, as well as down the boulevard, to the dark tower that stood tall amongst the ruins. It was Voldemort's citadel, and it had been constructed _after_ Britain had been torn to hell by his forces. "Forces" having the meaning of not _just_ wizards and witches, but also, of course, magical creatures he had managed to get onto his side or under his command; there were the giants, the Dementors, an army of Inferi made up of the thousands of people lost in the war, and even-

"Dragon! I see a dragon!" Mynne spoke up excitedly. "Can I kill it?"

"If it sees _us_ , yes, you can kill it." Vanessa allowed, as she searched the tower, room by room, for Voldemort. The tower which, due to the charms on her scope, appeared to be without a wall on the side facing her; looked as if it just opened up to the world. Considering Vanessa's bullets were phasic - meaning they would go through any and all magical barriers and walls alike until they struck something living - it might as well have been.

"You know what I've always wanted to do?" Mynne spoke again.

"Go skinny-dipping in a bowl of Jell-O?" Vanessa said absently, still looking for Voldemort (though she had, in the course of her search, marked several other targets she really, really wanted to kill - and _was_ going to kill, if she failed to take down Voldemort).

"Pfft. No." Mynne paused. "Maybe." she admitted, in a small voice. "But that's not what I'm talking about!" she went on hastily. "I want to fly into a dragon's mouth, down its throat, all the way into its squishy insides and then..." Mynne made an explosion sound effect with her mouth. "Blow it up from the inside with my trusty sidearm. How badass would that be?"

Vanessa smirked to herself as she said, "Very - if you survived being roasted, anyway. Dragons don't have stomach acid, they have magma."

"I could do it!" Mynne huffed, and Vanessa (who was still eyeing the tower) very clearly imagined the little fairy flipping her grass-green hair over her shoulder. "Everyone might be a bunch of too-big fatties, but I have enough magic to go toe to toe with any of them."

Despite that Vanessa was on the verge of assassinating an evil dictator who had ruled the wastelands of Britain for ten years now (and who had fought off any and all nations that had tried to come in and liberate it), she couldn't help but laugh at Mynne, who strongly held to the belief that it was the _rest_ of the world and all its inhabitants who were _oversized_ , and that _she_ , Mynne, was the one at the normal and proper size.

"You know, you're the only person I've ever met who insults every living thing on the planet on a daily basi..." Vanessa trailed off into silence, as a very familiar person entered into her sights on the highest level of the tower. _Of course_ , she thought, on identifying the large chamber as some kind of a throne room. And in the throne room, was Voldemort. Pasty white, ugly, snake-like, with glowing red eyes and a bald head. To Vanessa's disgust and dismay, Voldemort looked to be enjoying the... _entertainment_ of a round dozen Veela.

 _Well, that's going to make this a whole lot harder,_ thought Vanessa, for she knew that Voldemort's personal troupe of Veela... _partners_ , for want of any less crude terms, also doubled as his elite guard.

"You can kill the evil, immortal dictator any day now, you know." Mynne remarked.

"Shut up." Vanessa breathed. "You know as well as I do that I need the perfect shot. I need one hit, one kill, or he'll just Apparate away and get his injuries healed. If he would just stop _moving_..."

"What's he doing?"

Vanessa shuddered. "Having way too much fun with way too many feminine creatures."

"Reminds me of my life back in the kingdom." Vanessa could hear the wistfulness in Mynne's voice. "I was a _fun_ princess."

"You're still a fun princess." Vanessa assured. "Just...not in the same way now as you were then."

"If you _wanted_ me to be the kind of fun I was back then, my offer is still open. You know, my offer to flutter my wings against your-"

"No!" Vanessa cut Mynne off - very, very firmly. "Our friendship has limits."

"If you say so." Mynne answered carelessly. Then her tones grew cheerful as she added, "I guess we'll just have to stick to killing things together. By the way, how are you doing with that? Did you find the shot yet, or am I going to be sitting around on my delicate butt until-"

Vanessa pulled the trigger. There was no kickback, no muzzle flash, and no sound. She was exultant, triumphant, as she knew the bullet was crossing the distance, was bound straight for Voldemort's pasty forehead, was going to burrow into his skull and then explode, taking his head with it, and then it would all, finally, be over-

-and in less than a second's time, she was no longer so pleased, so glad, so swimming in her own victory; because Voldemort had moved his head to the left to reach the lips of a Veela.

The bullet grazed his neck, struck the naked chest of a fawning Veela, and exploded, taking with it the exquisite breasts of a Veela rather than the disgusting head of the most evil, most powerful dark wizard of the age.

"Shit!" Vanessa cried, even as she moved the barrel three inches to the right and many more inches _down_ , hoping to try for a heart shot on the Dark lord who was looking around his throne room in shock and confusion (and completely ignoring the dead Veela, and all the still-living Veela who, in their rage over the loss of their fellow, were turning into bipedal, bird-like monsters with long, scaly wings).

"I take it you missed?" Mynne said gleefully, her golden handgun already held in both hands, as she fluttered her wings and took off out the window and soared down the boulevard at an impossible (if not for magic, anyway) speed.

"Get back here!" Vanessa shouted after the fairy, even as she zoomed out her view of the tower and brought her rifle swiveling down to take a potshot at one of her other, marked targets; Draco Malfoy, who was lounging around like a king in a private room with both Parvati and Padma Patil (they had sided with Voldemort, had become Death Eaters, many years ago, for reasons only they would know, but had never told. Parvati's daughter, seventeen-year-old Clarissa, was a Death Eater, as well).

Thinking about Clarissa still hurt for Vanessa. It hurt her to remember the years before this new war Voldemort had waged on Britain (called, despite that it was still ongoing, the Third Wizarding War) had begun, ten years prior, with the aid of either one or many more hidden Horcruxes, as well as still loyal followers he had retained from the Second Wizarding War. It hurt for Vanessa to remember that Clarissa, a murderess a dozen times over, a torturer and a cold-hearted bitch, had once been a little girl whom Vanessa had babysat too many times to count. A little girl who had once called Vanessa "Auntie Nessy".

But what hurt worse than these memories of a girl long lost, and the knowledge that the daughter of Vanessa's childhood friend had grown up to be a killer, were the OTHER memories they stirred within Vanessa. Memories she had long-since suppressed, and yet were now resurfacing. Memories of ANOTHER little girl. A toddler, a three-year-old girl named Violet. Violet, who had been Vanessa's own daughter. Violet, a daughter dead for a decade now. Violet, a daughter who had been murdered in Vanessa's own home by Death Eaters in the outbreak of the Third Wizarding War (Vanessa and her family had been the very first to be targeted, in fact).

It was agony to recall that night, to recall the image that had been burned into Vanessa's eyes for all eternity, that caused her to wake up screaming every night, and that had caused her to attempt suicide multiple times (Vanessa only lived now because her wife, Pansy Parkinson, dead for four years now, had stopped her every time): the image of three-year-old Violet on her bedroom floor, with a waterfall of blood pouring down her front from out of the long and terribly deep gash across her throat.

And yet, still worse to remember was the identity of Violet's killer: Cho Chang, who, like Parvati and Padma, had not been a Death Eater (or even a Voldemort sympathizer) in the Second wizarding War, but for reasons unknown (reasons, however, that, unlike in the case of Padma and Parvati - who had been childhood friends and dorm-mates of Vanessa's - Vanessa could not care any less about) had _definitely_ become one in the Third Wizarding War.

But it was worse, so much worse, because Cho had to have converted _before_ the Third Wizarding War had begun in order to have participated so actively in the invasion of Vanessa's home that had marked the very start of the war.

With these horrible recollections rushing back to her, Vanessa could not-

"Move, you idiot!" yelled Mynne as she zipped by the window, where Vanessa still knelt, though now trembling, and now with tears running down her face. But even so, even shaking like a leaf, even with her vision blurred, and even in the throes of her emerging, deepest, darkest of memories, Vanessa was a veteran of war, and she knew damn well when someone told you to move, you _moved_. And so she did. In one, fluid motion, she let her rifle drop, withdrew an item that looked remarkably like a baton out of her magically expanded jacket pocket, and dove headfirst through the window. Just in time, too. A jet of dragonfire streamed in through the window to scorch the room she had previously occupied.

In Vanessa's two-handed grip, the baton elongated, and became the handlebars to an instantly formed motorcycle that, while being without wheels, was possessed of swept-back wings, beneath each of which hung a long, thin-barreled turret.

 _Thank you Sirius, Hagrid, and Mr. Weasley, for showing me just how much the merging of magic and technology can surpass either of them alone_ , Vanessa thought, smiling to herself a watery smile at the still more painful but pleasant memories that invaded her mind, as she corkscrewed up high past the dragon, backflipped into a dive, and squeezed the right handlebar trigger to unleash twin red beams of pure plasma energy on the dragon's backside. They easily burned straight through the dragon, scorching holes in the rubble-strewn street below, and getting a roar of considerable pain from the creature.

As Vanessa sped down past the dragon, she spotted Mynne hovering on her back far below (only a few inches above the street), her tiny golden gun glistening in the sunlight - and pointed straight up, at the dragon's very vulnerable and soft underbelly. Vanessa swerved several feet to the left, even in her fierce dive, to get herself out of the path of what she knew was coming. And come it did; not a second later, a red beam of energy - much like the weapons equipped on Vanessa's jetbike - lanced up to punch through the dragon's belly. There was just one, minor difference between Mynne's energy weapon and Vanessa's: Mynne's energy beam had the diameter of a school bus.

Mynne and her glinting gun completely disappeared behind the beam, but even over the noise of the beam, and over the pain-filled moan of the dragon as it was cut - _burned_ \- in two, Vanessa could hear Mynne's gleeful crowing.

And then suddenly it was over. The beam dissipated, two halves of a dragon hit the ground and caused miniature earthquakes...and Mynne was still at it, still blowing her own horn, and barrel-rolling over and over in place.

"Hey! Veela." Vanessa said shortly, simply, coming up out of her dive to hover beside Mynne, and pointing up to the top of the tower, where, indeed, just one Veela short of a dozen were soaring out of some hidden doorway, bound, unmistakably, for Vanessa and Mynne.

Mynne ceased her rolling and gloating, adopted another of her rather impish grins, and took aim at the Veela armada. "Bet I can get half of them with one shot." she said, and then, without further ado, she fired. Three Veela out of eleven got caught in the massive beam; the other eight had seen what Mynne's gun had done to the dragon, and they were smart enough to get the hell out of the way, and so survived. Mynne's grin faltered. "I meant, bet I can get half of six of them!" she said quickly. "I really need to be more clear about these sorts of things in the future."

 _In the past_ , Vanessa thought, as the backup plan, the last resort cooked up by herself, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley - to be instigated in the event of Vanessa's failure here, today, to destroy Voldemort's body and free Britain from his rule - came to mind.

That half-second of musing nearly cost Vanessa her life.

A giant's foot came at Vanessa out the corner of her eye, like a football player kicking a football at the start of the game, and she, with all the skill of a (former) professional, international Quidditch player, slapped her thumb to the little blue button on the left handlebar in reaction. Instantly, Vanessa and her jetbike were sucked out of existence, only to pop into being again a dozen feet away from the giant.

The giant that Mynne was already taking care of. By the time her blinding, enormous energy beam faded, the giant's whole head was gone, and the smoking carcass thudded to the ground.

Which still left the half dozen OTHER giants in the vicinity, the now-converging three-dozen Inferi crawling around the ruins like ants, and, of course, the elite guard of Veela boring down on Vanessa and Mynne, their bird-like beaks hard and vengeful, their scaly wings flapping too few times to possibly achieve the speed they were going, and their hands burning with ready-and-waiting-to-be-thrown fireballs.

"Time to go." Vanessa deadpanned. She extended a hand to Mynne, who was delighting in blowing massive, clean holes through buildings in her efforts to wipe out the Inferi scourge. A protesting Mynne was dragged backwards through the air, as if by an invisible fishing hook, to land in Vanessa's waiting palm. Vanessa wasted no time in tapping a big, red button in the center of the handlebars, and then she, Mynne, and the jetbike disappeared, leaving nothing but air where they had once been.

But they did not reappear anywhere near Voldemort's citadel, did not reappear anywhere in London. No, they reappeared many, many, many miles away, on the very coast, with the sun glittering down on the ocean, and the crashing waves filling their ears, and the smell of the sea overwhelming their noses, in front of a large house on a fern-covered hill.

Two individuals emerged from the home as Vanessa dismounted her jetbike and dispelled it, stowing away the handlebars that were now - again - nothing but a plain, short, black baton in her jacket pocket.

"Thank god you're back!" Hermione Granger exclaimed, throwing her arms around Vanessa's neck and seemingly doing her best to strangle the latter woman. Hermione drew away, a frown replacing her relieved and happy expression. "But so soon?"

"Did you do it?" Ron said eagerly. "Did you knock that evil tosser off the face of the map?"

"Does this _look_ like the face of a girl who killed an evil dictator and restored peace to the land?" Mynne responded, jabbing both index fingers repeatedly at Vanessa's face, before Vanessa herself could give a response.

"Erm, right. Sorry." said Ron apologetically to Vanessa, scuffing his boots in the dirt.

"Doesn't matter now." Vanessa said finally. "It won't matter, in a few minutes. None of this will matter." she went on, eyeing her two best friends with the utmost seriousness. "There's only one thing left to do now. Return to better days, and stop any of this from happening to begin with." Vanessa finished, with no small trace of bitterness.

Hermione and Ron, while looking suitably grim and accepting, also looked a little scared at the prospect of what they were about to do. Something that they had not, Vanessa now realized, hoped to have to actually go through with. Unlike Vanessa herself, who had been dearly _hoping_ all these years to do what they were about to do. Dreaming of it, yearning for it...

After all, Vanessa had nothing and no one here. Her little girl was long dead, her wife dead more recently (though it was not more painful a loss, which Vanessa had always felt ashamed, guilty, and confused by). Hermione and Ron, on the other hand, were still together, still married, and they still had their child. Their little Rosie; though she was not so little now, seeing as she was sixteen. And, Vanessa supposed, they did not actually _have her_ , because Rosie was in the Wizarding United States, safe and hidden with the many other...refugees, as she had been for the past decade.

It was honestly a kind of stalemate, nation-wise. The other nations' attempts at sending in troops and liberating Britain from Voldemort had all failed, and yet Voldemort did not possess sufficient wizarding forces with which to expand out from Britain and take over the other nations. All Voldemort could do was continue to hold Britain (something that he had been doing with no small amount of satisfaction).

"Right." Hermione nodded. "We'll need to go inside to do this, and-"

Vanessa made for the front door without a word. But in her own head she was thinking things she had long been, at the prospect of time travel. _I can't wait to see my wife again. And I_ will _get to see my daughter live her life, not have it cut short (again) before it can hardly even start. This war is_ never _going to happen, and I'll die to make sure of it if I have to. My wife will live, my daughter will live, my friends won't become killers, and my ex-girlfriend won't murder my daughter in her own bedroom. And even more, even further...I won't just make sure this war never happens. I'll make things_ before _the war better. Hell, I'll stop the_ second _Wizarding War from ever happening. And, along the way, I'll keep Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets, I'll kill the Basilisk before it can even wake up from its sleep, I'll capture Peter and clear Sirius' name, I'll keep my name from getting into the Goblet, I'll save Cedric, I'll save Sirius, and I'll save Snape. And I'll_ definitely _prevent Dumbledore's death_. She knew she was being selfish, that these thoughts were selfish, in wanting to get back all of _her_ friends and family, but she honestly did not care. Because didn't she have the right to be a little selfish after an entire life of selflessly, tirelessly devoting herself to putting an end to Voldemort?

She had been fighting Voldemort since she was eleven years old. She deserved these thoughts, deserved to do the things she was going to do in the past. Deserved to _improve_ the past - for herself and for her loved ones.

Sure, that was not at all part of the plan she, Hermione, and Ron had made together regarding going back to prevent the Third Wizarding War (Hermione had all but constantly beaten them over the head that they were to ride the river, make as little ripples as possible), but to hell with that, Vanessa thought fiercely. To hell with as little ripples as possible, to hell with _riding the river_ through pointless early deaths and a fucking _war_! Chances like this did not come along every day, and Vanessa was damn well going to take it - take it, and embrace it to the maximum.

Of course, as the four of them - that's right, the _four_ of them; Mynne was coming too, because, in her words, "I miss those parties I used to throw all the time." - began the construction of barriers to prevent their souls (on departure from their bodies) from going to the afterlife of _this_ time instead of being drawn back into the past to merge with their past souls and bodies as was the intent...Vanessa did not say a single word to Hermione, Ron, or even Mynne about these plans she had in her mind to cheat the world, and the forces of fate and destiny themselves.

 _Sirius...Pansy...Lupin...Ginny...Fred...George...Percy...Cedric...Snape..._

The names of the dead continued to flow through Vanessa's mind, and then, with just two little words and a smile, Vanessa was the first one off on the journey into the past, where she would forge for everyone she loved a better future, and forge for herself a second - and much more better - life. Those words were...

"Avada Kedavra."

* * *

Vanessa still wore the smile on her arrival that she had on her departure, as she opened her eyes to the sight of Dudley's second bedroom - _her_ bedroom - and took it all in: the calendar on the wall, where many of August's days were ticked off in anticipation of September 1st; Hedwig ( _Hedwig! Alive!_ ), so brilliantly white in the morning sun, and so, so much more beautiful than Vanessa's memories had ever done justice, dozing off in her cage on Vanessa's desk; Vanessa's trunk, with is gleaming Hogwarts crest on the lid, at the foot of her bed; and...

"Damnit!" Vanessa cried happily as she leapt out of bed and over to the cracked old mirror to examine herself in full. She had to have been overtaken by some form of temporary insanity, or mania, because, as she yanked off her t-shirt and pushed the pair of Dudley's old, oversized shorts she was wearing down to her ankles and inspected her own, way-too-skinny-and-covered-in-bruises body, Vanessa was _smiling_! No, more than that: she was _beaming_! Beaming at her own tiny, bony, abused little body.

Well, it wasn't going to _remain_ tiny, bony, and abused for long, Vanessa thought to herself firmly. Unlike her _first_ August before first year and her six years at Hogwarts, Vanessa was going to _gorge_ herself every chance she got. And, on the matter of life here at Privet Drive, she was _not_ going to just lay down and take all the abuse her relatives sent her way. She wasn't at all a terrified little girl anymore, too ashamed of her own condition to get herself help - and help with her health - until she had been _forced_ to do so by a very perceptive Hermione and concerned Hogwarts Professors (and a certain strict but kind-hearted nurse), as she had been the first time around. She had long-since grown up, had long-since replaced all that fear and shame with righteous anger, and even disdain for her relatives.

Vanessa was _not_ going to endure one, single beating more. If she had to use magic to prevent it from taking place, then so be it. She didn't care. But to those who _would_ care, there _was_ that law that allowed even underage witches to use magic in life-threatening situations, which would definitely cover Vanessa's butt on the matter. That, and there was the fact that she was the Girl-Who-Lived. The _first_ time the wizarding world had learned of her abuse, she had really been too ashamed and upset to think anything of it, but now that she looked back on it, the whole trial for the Dursleys, the fury on the Ministry's behalf, and all the sympathy from teachers and students alike had been...well, really nice.

Not from some attention-seeking perspective, but rather, from the perspective that Vanessa had never had anyone looking out for her like that before, at that time in her life. No one had ever cared about her prior to that, no one had ever looked at her the way her teachers had, and even the way the other students had.

Distanced by time, Vanessa could now (and had, in the years after in the first timeline) really appreciate just how many people actually, genuinely cared about her welfare, or even merely pitied her condition, which had been better than nothing.

She was, she decided, going to be a lot more grateful to the people around her, and take more of a...a _notice_ of their care for her.

The number of times when she should have just opened her mouth and told Snape, McGonagall, and so many others, "Thank you! Thank you _so much_!", but never had, due to having been stuck in her own, terrified little head...

It was really like thinking about an entirely different person, Vanessa realized. She was fierce, bold, and perhaps even crude at times now, in her adulthood, but in her childhood in the first timeline she had been mute, meek, and totally terrified of doing something that someone had told her _not_ to do (like revealing her abuse, or eating good food) - so much so that she _hadn't_ done them. Which really was saying something; she knew _other_ abused children, while scared, had worked through their fears to get help, or to disobey their abusers in other ways (like eating good food). And yet Vanessa had never disobeyed, not even when apart and away from the Dursleys. Not even at Hogwarts, where she should have known she was perfectly safe...

Her speaking (signing, actually) at the trial had been her one, singular and momentous act of defiance against the Dursleys, and only after months and even years after the trial had she allowed herself to begin to _minorly_ disobey (to eat good food and wear nice clothes, etc). Speaking of after; Vanessa had never seen the Dursleys again, after the trial. Had never visited them in prison. Not once. She had, in becoming independent and free of them and the lessons they had beaten into her, never given them a care or a thought after. She had been content to lock her childhood away in the depths of her mind, never to remember those times again. Almost like it had never even existed, had never happened. Or, at least, if it _had_ happened, it had happened to some _other_ girl.

Not even throughout the Second and Third Wizarding Wars had Vanessa given the Dursleys any thought. No thought as to their whereabouts or even their survival. If they had died or lived...Vanessa could not have even cared, either way.

But now she was here again, back again, with _them_ again, and she was finding herself being _forced_ to care, either way.

Did she want them dead, or alive? Should she do it herself, or hand them, gift-wrapped, to Voldemort? Or should she reveal her abuse (something she would have no problem whatsoever doing this time around) to someone of authority, and let the Dursleys get thrown in prison like had happened the first time? Well, her aunt and uncle, anyway. Dudley, Vanessa the thirty-six-year-old woman had to admit, had been as abused as she, only in a different way, and deserved no punishment. He had had those lessons in cruelty and bullying drilled into him from toddlerhood, and had never had an actual choice in the matter.

But what if he _had_ been given a choice? Vanessa thought suddenly. What if she included Dudley in her rather extensive list of people she wanted to give a better future this time around? Could she possibly do something, anything, to counter his beliefs, his bullying ways, and ensure that he would become a better man than he was child?

"Something to think about." Vanessa murmured to her naked, skinny, and horribly bruised reflection. "In the meantime," she went on, in a normal and perfectly confident voice, as she pulled out some day clothes from her tattered old dresser and began dressing herself. "it's morning, I'm starving, and I'm going to get some breakfast." She turned a beaming look on her snowy owl. "What do you think, Hedwig?"

Hedwig gave Vanessa a look that was almost confused, and (perhaps this was more of Vanessa's time-travel-induced insanity at work) even shocked, as if saying, in a very unspoken way: who are you and what have you done with the terrified, head-bowing, shoulder-slumping, slow-moving, and totally-mute Vanessa who went to sleep last night?

Vanessa, feeling a rush of pleasure and amusement at Hedwig's reaction, giggled - god, she hadn't giggled in _years_ , and it felt damn _good_ to do so again - and she looked forward to even more pleasure and giggling once the Dursleys became acquainted with the new her.

The Dursleys - or, at least, the aunt and uncle - who would get frozen to the spot when they _tried_ (and Vanessa knew without a doubt that they _would_ try) to beat the new confidence and strength out of their niece. As if that - or even just the threat of that - would actually intimidate her, Vanessa thought in amusement, as she made her way down to the kitchen. She who had survived two wars, she who had dueled with (and eventually had grown able to actually hold her own against) Voldemort too many times to remember, she who had encountered and fought a vast array of dark creatures, and she who had undergone the worst sorts of tortures (and _tortures_ ) over the course of her life - the Dursleys' abuse of her during her first childhood included.

Oh yes, when a woman had stood up to the likes of Voldemort, Dementor and Inferi armies, and fearsome dragons, she stopped being intimidated by the average, everyday person who happened to raise a fist at her, or give her a particularly hard glare.

Even if - or perhaps especially if - they were her childhood abusers, because it was them for whom she felt nothing towards but hatred and contempt, as well as held the knowledge that they literally could never hurt her again even if they tried.

Vanessa paused before entering the kitchen. Not out of any fear (obviously; she _had_ just gone over this with herself), but because she wanted to savor the scene that was to come, and burn it into her memory, for it was to be the first of many memories to come that would overwrite the memories of her _first_ childhood.

After all, how many people got a do-over as literal and as complete as the one Vanessa had? She could only think of three other people (and one of them was a fairy). She knew what Hermione was likely, at that very moment, doing with hers. Hermione was probably reading all kinds of books she'd never gotten around to reading - on account of Britain being decimated and taken over by Voldemort - as well as rectifying the regret she had often voiced that was her not having spent much time at all with her parents after getting into Hogwarts. Because that was Hermione, so subtle, so discreet. So...not causing any ripples in time. Ron, on the other hand, was probably challenging his older brothers (all of whom were alive and well once more, something that Ron was probably going to tears over) to many games of Quidditch and Chess, and - just as Vanessa had made up her mind to do - causing massive ripples in time by handing them their...well, by beating them very soundly and astonishingly.

Ginny was alive again, too, here in the past, and Vanessa smiled to herself at the sudden, mental image of Ron hugging Ginny (who, not that it was important or anything, happened to have been Vanessa's first girlfriend; they had dated for a period of several months towards the end of Vanessa's third year, into summer before fourth year, and during the beginning of fourth year) so hard the little redhead went blue.

As for Mynne...the fairy woman acted nonchalant, most of the time, like nothing ever bothered her, or else like she was just having this grand old time _all_ the time, but Vanessa knew that that very act was an act of _coping_ (or at least, most of it was; some of it was just Mynne's personality, and some of it was just how fairies in general were), and that Mynne had actually felt very strongly for the loss of her entire fairy kingdom (which stretched along the outer edge of the forbidden forest, opposite the side Hogwarts and its grounds were on); and her mother (the fairy queen), her many sisters and aunts (for there were no male fairies), and friends who had all died along with it when the Death Eaters had set Fiendfyre to the forest.

That was how they had first met, Vanessa and Mynne. On a night - according to Vanessa's personal timeline, which now would have to include both _literal_ timelines - seven years ago, while the forest and all its inhabitants were being burned alive, swept away in a wave of fire. Vanessa had risked that fire and that terrible death to rescue Mynne, and in so doing had earned Mynne's everlasting companionship. This bond, this promise, made in more than just mere word - it was a magical one, much like the contract between House-Elf and human - was rarely ever forged between fairies, let alone between fairies and nonfairies, and Vanessa had never taken it for granted. Had never given Mynne any reason to sever it (which she was perfectly capable of doing, should Vanessa ever offend her deeply enough; and this also extended to Vanessa's treatment and actions against _others_ , not simply against Mynne, that might give Mynne cause to renege on her magical vow).

Vanessa, on top of never _having_ given Mynne reason to break their bond, had no great _desire_ to do so, because to do so - to give a fairy reason enough to break the bond (which they did not do lightly) - according to fairy law, gave the fairy who broke it the right- no, the legal and moral _obligation_...to take the wings of the offending fairy (depriving them of their ability to fly - permanently - as well as making it very clear to all other fairies that they had broken the rarest and deepest of bonds). In Vanessa's case, as Mynne had so casually explained to her once upon a time, "Since you don't actually _have_ wings, the equivalent would be..." Mynne had paused, and had given one of her mischevious grins. "well, I'd have to find some way to permanently remove your legs. Blow them up, cut them off...fairy law isn't too particular about just how we remove the offender's wings - or how long we're supposed to take doing it..."

Vanessa shook her head and smiled at the memory. There was no doubt, really, that the easygoing, playful, and slightly sociopathic Mynne (traits that Vanessa had come to suspect - both from Mynne's casual comments about her race, and from the stories she had told Vanessa of her past over the years - were not simply unique to Mynne, but were in fact shared across the entire fairy race) was at this moment back among her sisters and aunts and friends, and was having the most _magical_ party ever thrown in the history of the world.

Vanessa would not be at all surprised (for more reasons than simply Mynne's almost legendary promiscuity) if, when Mynne finally came back to her here in the past, Mynne told her that she had become the proud mother of a few dozen daughters; and this lack of surprise would be so, because, in the first timeline, Mynne had had nine baby daughters (a few short than was usual for fairies, according to Mynne). Nine baby daughters who had all died in the Fiendfyre (something that Mynne and Vanessa shared besides their bond; they both had lost their children to the Third Wizarding War). They had not even emerged from their eggs yet, had not yet awoken (fairies were like fish, in that they expelled many eggs rather than gave single live births like humans, which they then had to protect for three months until their children would awaken and emerge. Another difference between fairies and humans was that fairy babies were not exactly _babies_ \- were not born as helpless infants, but rather with the full ability to fly and walk and move about, along with the appearance of what humans would consider to be seven or eight year olds).

As such (still in their eggs), Mynne's children had been helpless and motionless before the Fiendfyre onslaught...and completely unaware that their lives were ending before they could even begin.

Casting off these horrific and upsetting recollections, Vanessa pushed open the kitchen door, and entered into a future that would be well worth remembering.

"Good morning." Vanessa greeted her relatives as she took from the fridge a box of donuts, which she began eating from on her way back out of the kitchen. Unsurprisingly (exactly as planned) she did not make it out without question.

"Where do you think you're going with that, girl?!" roared Uncle Vernon, tossing his newspaper on the table, and jumping up out of his seat far faster than Vanessa remembered him being able to move. "You ungrateful little bitch! You think now that you've learned you're one of...one of _those_ sort that you can just steal from us and walk away?"

"Yeah." Vanessa said, through a mouthful of chocolate donut. She paused in the doorway and turned around to face her uncle, who had now come up to her, and was now towering over her, all large and purple - and not in the least bit threatening. Especially considering she was fingering her wand in the pocket of her oversized jeans (she had had to fold the waistband down over itself several times).

"Well I won't stand for it!" Vernon bellowed, spit flying, meaty fists shaking at his sides. "You're nothing but a worthless little shit! You get the food _we_ give to you, not _these_!" He punctuated "these" with an upward swing of his hand that knocked the donut box flying. He drew his other fist back, clearly intent on having it rebound and connect with Vanessa's face.

And Vanessa, with all the reaction time of a war veteran and an international Quidditch player, whipped out her wand and cast a nonverbal Freezing Charm on, not only her uncle before he could punch her, but on her aunt, as well (who was, to Vanessa's recollection of her first childhood, very prone to joining in and kicking and stomping on Vanessa whenever her uncle had her down; Petunia Dursley simply could not resist taking every opportunity to crush the splitting image of her dead sister, for whom she held hatred and jealousy, as Vanessa had come to understand of her aunt).

Dudley, on seeing his parents become as motionless as statues, screamed and fled the kitchen in pure terror. Vanessa heard him stumbling his way up the stairs, followed by the sound of his bedroom door slamming, and she felt, at least for her cousin, a small bit of guilt. Thirty-six-year-old Vanessa felt guilty, anyway. But the part of Vanessa that was always inside of her, the part that was always raw, always intense, always...a child, even now, even all these years later...the part of her that flinched at loud noises, and tried to squirm away from hugs (even ones she had received from her wife, albeit only for a brief, initial moment), and the part of her that felt a flashing of fear and panic at unexpected touches, even just hands on her shoulders and the like...

 _That_ part of Vanessa felt only pure and total satisfaction with herself, with her current actions, and with the results they had garnered.

And it was that part that was, now that Vanessa was actually, truly a child in body and in legality again, making itself very much known. Almost taking over...almost...asserting itself over Vanessa's logical, mature, thirty-six-year-old mind. It did not want rationale, did not want reason, did not want arguments against _this_ action or _that_ action because she was an adult and adults did not _do_ this or _do_ that. It just wanted to _do_ them, and feel damn good while it did them.

Making matters slightly more worse was the fact that Vanessa's thirty-six-year-old mind was, as well, deriving from her current actions a certain satisfaction, even as it acknowledged that this course of action was all part of the plan...

Slowly, casually, Vanessa put her wand away, and went to retrieve the box of donuts. She sat calmly down at the table across from her frozen-like-a-statue aunt and got through two whole donuts before the letter arrived.

Or rather, before the owl holding the letter arrived.

"Thank you." Vanessa told the owl as she picked up the letter off the table. The owl gave her an odd look before flying off back out the window. Vanessa couldn't help but smile as she read the letter. It was, of course, from the Ministry, warning her that underage witches were not allowed to do magic outside of school, blah blah blah, and that doing magic around Muggles not aware already of the existence of wizards and witches was a serious breach of the blah blah blah.

Well then. She _had_ been hoping to get enough attention for the Ministry to actually send someone to investigate, but that had been her thinking logically (which most witches and wizards didn't do) about the fact that a Freezing Charm was a spell of an offensive nature, and so would warrant a more serious and immediate response compared to, say, a Hover Charm or something.

Oh well. Vanessa would just have to go to plan B in her plans to get her abuse recognized almost immediately, and so speed up the events that had taken place over the course of her first year in the previous timeline (the public outrage, the trial, Vanessa getting to stay at Hogwarts and so grow closer to Snape; something she really, really wanted to have happen again. She could never forget that Snape had taken her to visit her parents' graves in her second year, or how the man had become much less bitter and cruel the more time he had spent with Vanessa, and how he had been the one to teach her how to use sign language in the absence of her ability to speak verbally, and how he had gained guardianship over her, FOR HER, and how he had become, in all honesty, the closest thing to a father she had ever had - a fact that Sirius had not taken well at all, and had never come to accept before his death in Vanessa's fifth year).

Vanessa absconded from the kitchen and up to her room, where she sat down at her desk, gave Hedwig's head a scratch, took out some lined paper and an old pen, and began writing her own letter, addressed to one Minerva McGonagall (the only other person a normal, eleven-year-old Vanessa could have written a letter to in the magical world at this point in the timeline would have been Hagrid, but, honestly, thirty-six-year-old Vanessa did not want to tell Hagrid of her abuse - at least, not first, and not like this - because she did not want him to come storming down here to literally rip the Dursleys' heads off). No matter what the Dursleys had done, Vanessa finally decided for herself, they did not deserve to die for it. Just going to prison again, like they had in the previous timeline, would be good enough for Vanessa. After all, it had been well enough justice for her the first time around (though she had been in no state to recognize and acknowledge it at the time, as with all the public outcry and sympathy and care that had been _really_ beneficial to her in hindsight).

As to the more here and now...well, Vanessa didn't see the harm in letting her aunt and uncle stay frozen for a good, solid couple of hours (which, they would, until the charm wore off naturally, in lieu of Vanessa going down and unfreezing them herself - which she really just couldn't do, or risk getting herself another Ministry letter, which, at this point, would just throw a wrench in her plan to just let the Ministry think her very deliberate, nonverbal Freezing Charm had been an act of accidental wand magic; Vanessa had been told once by Mrs. Weasley that, often in dangerous and stressful situations, witches could do magic, wand or otherwise, unconsciously, that they never could have done _consciously_ , and she was perfectly prepared to let that be the good and reasonable conclusion the world would come to regarding her little freezing act).

After the letter to McGonagall was done and written, and had been sent off with Hedwig (whom Vanessa had portkey'd to Hogsmeade after summoning the Knight Bus and taking a fifteen second trip to London, so as to greatly speed up _Hedwig's_ trip, as well as give the illusion that Vanessa had sent her letter at least a day or two ago, because, of course, no underage witch could _possibly_ portkey an owl, and because the magic in London the Ministry would detect from the unauthorized portkey could have come from any old wizard or witch living in London, really - as they would most certainly conclude), Vanessa, immediately on her return to number four, strolled into the kitchen like she owned the place, selected some choice good food from the fridge (while completely ignoring her frozen aunt and uncle), and sat herself down in front of the sitting room television to watch some cartoons she had never gotten to watch the first time around.

She had not forgotten, however, in her excitement and elation about being back here in happier times, and in her rather selfish plans to better the future for herself and for everyone she loved and cared for, that her main objective, her main purpose for coming back here to begin with, was to put an end to Voldemort before he could become truly unkillable and undefeatable (not to mention ravage Britain with two wars in under two decades). Those additional, those _backup_ Horcruxes of his he had had in the previous timeline had to have been created _after_ his rebirth in her fourth year, seeing as, prior to then, he had been nothing but a spirit floating around, with no capability whatsoever to actually create more Horcruxes. After all, he had made Nagini a new Horcrux after his rebirth, and the way Dumbledore had talked, it had been sometime in fifth year that Voldemort had actually learned about the fate of his diary Horcrux from Lucius Malfoy.

So Vanessa - and Hermione, Ron, and Mynne, of course - had four years in which to destroy each of Voldemort's original Horcruxes (which she, they, knew the locations of, as well as their defenses), and then kill Voldemort himself before he could just make more. Which meant that the final showdown would take place in the graveyard, at the end of fourth year. Vanessa wasn't looking forward to visiting that site of trauma again, but, on the plus side, she would make sure she would not have to go through three dangerous, deadly tasks in order to finally arrive there. A simple Apparition the night of the third task would do just fine.

Vanessa soon lost herself, not only in the television, but in her own mind, as her thoughts turned (as they so often did) to her wife. Her wife who had, much like Vanessa's aunt, been so mean to her during her Hogwarts years because she, Pansy, had been jealous of Vanessa. Jealous of her beauty, her fame, and, most of all, the fact that Vanessa had had so many people who loved and cared about her, and had had deep and true friends around her. Pansy's situation, her home life, had not been - and was not _now_ , what with Vanessa being back in the past and all - dissimilar to Vanessa's own. Pansy had been neglected and abused by her mother and father, had had no real, true friends at Hogwarts, and had just generally absorbed herself into her cruelty and bullying as a means of coping with it all (not to mention as a means of venting). But after...just two months after the Second Wizarding War, when Pansy had come to Vanessa at the age of eighteen and told her all of this...

Well, they had gotten married not a month after that heartfelt night; all the early deaths of the people Vanessa had loved and cared about, along with having spent her entire teenage years fighting Voldemort, had taught Vanessa not to wait on the things that really mattered in life. Things like love, like family, like apologies and fixing mistakes, and rectifying regrets, and just pouring out the contents of your heart each and every time you opened your mouth, because you could not know if you would get the chance to truly say what you wanted to say to someone tomorrow...

After five years of marriage - and after five years of Vanessa tending to her international Quidditch career - they had had Violet, and then their life together had advanced to an entirely new, entirely more wonderful stage. It had been more bliss, more peace, more JOY than Vanessa could ever have imagined for herself, even after five years in a loving marriage.

And then, of course, three short years later - three years that had literally seemed to fly by - the Third Wizarding War had begun, and life had become much more _terrible_ and _horrifying_ than Vanessa could ever have imagined...

Undoubtedly, it was a great aid and nice effect in regards to Vanessa's plan that, when Minerva McGonagall, Vanessa's Head of House in the previous timeline (and hopefully her Head of House in _this_ timeline), arrived at number four, it was to find a small, skinny, bruised Vanessa curled up on the sofa, head in her arm, and sobbing her heart out - even if her tears, even if her _pain_ , was not at all being caused by that which Professor McGonagall would obviously conclude.

"Vanessa..." Professor McGonagall softly got her attention. Vanessa, on raising her head, was actually, genuinely shocked at the sight that met her - though, again, not for the reason McGonagall would think she was. Vanessa was shocked because she had never seen her Head of House the way she looked now. Professor McGongall was deathly pale, eyes wide and glimmering with barely-held-back tears, her face twisted into an expression that Vanessa thought was pretty close to horror, and her hands were actually _trembling_. Of course, it made some kind of sense to Vanessa; in the first timeline, in her first...first year at Hogwarts, Vanessa could vaguely recall that, after key members of staff had first learned of her abuse, she had spent a great deal of time in the hospital wing, and it was only after those long and terrifying hours that Professor McGonagall had come to see her; Vanessa's Head of House had had those hours to become...acclimated with the fact of one of her students suffering abuse, and so had had a great measure of composure when she had actually come face to face with said student.

Vanessa honestly felt a surge of guilt, now, for making her Professor come and see her like this. For having just sprung the knowledge of abuse on the woman, and then seen her come running to "rescue" Vanessa, as Vanessa had pleaded in her letter, with all the directness that any actual child her age would be expected to have, and that Vanessa _still_ had, even if it had shifted in a minor way from simple straightforwardness to more bluntness and crudeness over all these years (something that Vanessa really blamed her wife for; Pansy had, even after marrying Vanessa, never lost her way of speaking her mind, plain and unfiltered, and had also kept up a steady stream of insults and sarcastic remarks Vanessa's way, albeit affectionate in nature, rather than hurtful, as they had been in childhood).

 _Well, in for a penny, in for a pound_ , Vanessa thought, shoving her guilt down deep. This had been her plan, and she could not very well abandon it now - and she certainly would not _do so_ , anyway - over a little bit guilt. Or a lot. Even so, that didn't change the fact that her thirty-six-year-old mind wasn't really liking the path that lay ahead of her, now that it was actually experiencing what it meant to be in the past, to...to manipulate and play act around people she actually cared about, however necessary it was. No problem doing it to the Dursleys, or to Death Eaters and Voldemort, but to friends - to people Vanessa respected and admired...

Oh, yes, this was going to be a little emotionally harder than she had always thought, than she had always dreamed and imagined a time travel do-over would be.

Vanessa supposed she had been stuck in war and tragedy for so long that she had forgotten just how intense and powerful the feelings that came from peacetime were. Feelings like regret, remorse, guilt, and even happiness. All she had felt as of the past too many years were pain and anger, with the occasional, fleeting flickering of amusement or satisfaction (mostly brought on by Mynne and her...antics).

She had anticipated pain (and even anger, in the case of people like Cho Chang, or the Dursleys) at seeing these people who had been dead for so long alive again, but she had not anticipated these other feelings (regret, guilt, etc). She had expected only to have to be strong against the tide of bitterness and agony that would arise on coming face to face with, say, Pansy again, but never had expected that she would have to be strong in the face of such people _for_ such people; that even as she felt these feelings at the sight of them, that she would need to struggle against these feelings in order to make their lives better, make their futures better. That she would have to struggle just not to call it quits on account of her joy or guilt, things that were very much in the here and now, and not in memories of years past that she could very well push away again.

Oh yes, this was going to be difficult indeed...

"Vanessa, dear..." Professor Mcgonagall spoke again, in that soft, gentle voice that was not at all strict and whip-like, as were her usual tones. Vanessa had heard, of course, her Head of House speak to her in such tones before, though never to quite this degree, to this very extreme, as if she thought Vanessa were made of glass and would shatter at the slightest edge of firmness, of forcefulness or...or of order, of command, in her tone. "I am Minerva McGonagall, I received your letter. If- if you'll please take my arm, I'll take you to St. Mungo's - a hospital for wizards and witches." she added, on remembering the part in Vanessa's letter where Vanessa had written that she knew next to nothing about the magical world (Vanessa hoped to get that out there from the start along with her abuse, and avoid everyone in the magical world constantly expecting her to _know_ things that she could not possibly, reasonably know, simply because she was the Girl-Who-Lived, as had happened in the first timeline; true, she was thirty-six in mind, and _did_ actually, already know everything there was to know, and then some, but it was for the sake of the appearance of things - for the image she wanted to build and present for herself this time around).

And that was _not_ the image of a terrified little wreck of a mute girl, as she had been in her _first_ childhood.

"What are you going to do about _them_?" Vanessa asked, with absolutely real and true venom in her voice as she jerked her head towards the kitchen - towards her frozen aunt and uncle.

"They don't seem to be in any immediate danger." Professor McGonagall answered, with a nearly undetectable trace of derision that only someone who had known her for over two decades - Vanessa - would ever be capable of detecting. "After I've seen you off to St. Mungo's, and placed in the care of very skilled Healers - magical doctors, I suppose you could say - I will return here to reverse the effect that your magic had on them."

"And then?" Vanessa prompted, pulling an expression of fear and wariness over her face. Though, having gone through all this before, she knew exactly what was going to come of this - of the revelation of her abuse.

Professor McGonagall hesitated, seemingly struggling with whether or not she should tell Vanessa something. "Don't trouble yourself over it." she said finally, placing a comforting, yet ginger hand on Vanessa's arm. Still, Vanessa winced at the pain that flared up from her bruised and delicate body; she had forgotten just how much she had always _hurt_ as a child, how much it had hurt to move, or for her to just...be touched, like now. "Now, please, if you would take my arm..." Vanessa did so. And she felt surprised, almost shocked, really, at how absolutely _tiny_ her hand looked in comparison to McGonagall's arm. But she didn't have long to feel that way, because in the next second, McGonagall Disapparated, taking Vanessa along with her.

* * *

"I forgot your teeth were so big." Vanessa giggled, after a solid five minutes of staring at Hermione, who, along with Ron (the rest of the Weasleys were waiting outside Vanessa's private ward in St. Mungo's for reasons Ron had yet to explain, seeing as they - Vanessa and the Weasleys - weren't even supposed to know each other yet at this point in time), was seated beside her hospital bed.

"I forgot Ron had all those freckles on his nose." Hermione giggled, earning her a red-eared Ron.

"I forgot you looked like you challenged the bloody Whomping Willow to a boxing match." Ron told Vanessa, eyeing her with substantial pity. Pity that Vanessa would not have noticed, had she actually again been the PTSD-ridden eleven year old she had once been.

"How did you two get here?" Vanessa asked. "We're not supposed to know each other yet."

"I told my parents I'd met you at a bookstore, and that we'd really hit it off, and that we'd learned of our mutual witchliness when I recognized you as the Girl-Who-Lived from your scar." Hermione answered promptly. "I also bought a subscription to the Prophet nearly first thing I came back, so when I saw you appear there on the front page...it didn't really take much to convince them to let me come and see you - allegedly again. Anyway, now you know what to say if my parents come to you being all curious about how we met. That's the basic story, and together you and I can improvise to fill in the details if we need to."

"I pretty much got here the same way." Ron said, shrugging in a most adult way. "Saw you in the Prophet, told mum and dad since you didn't exactly have anyone who could come see you that it'd be considerate and all of us to come do that. Sort of show you the best the wizarding world has to offer, too, since the Prophet's been all over your growing up ignorant of our world and all. Oh, yeah, and I managed to get them mulling over the idea of appealing for guardianship over you." he added, like it was something anyone could have forgotten. Like it was no big deal.

But it was, even to a thirty-six-year-old Vanessa. Sure, she had become the ward of Professor Snape in her first childhood, and she had - and still did - considered him a father figure, if not a plain _father_ , however...that could not compare to _this_ ; to the prospect of being taken in by, raised by, a real, wholesome family. And one of her favorite families in the world to boot. Yes, there was most definitely an appeal to her inner child.

"You've come a long way from the blundering, tactless idiot you were when you were _actually_ eleven." Vanessa said finally, channeling her inner Pansy, with a smile of gratitude and appreciation at her best friend. Ron just shrugged again (though looking pleased with himself), and Hermione shook her head in amusement, yet also threw her husband (which was weird for Vanessa to think about, considering they were eleven) a glowing look.

"You're welcome, Ness." Ron grinned.

"Are you completely furious with me?" Vanessa directed at Hermione, though grinning, too, as she registered Ron's use of her childhood nickname. "You know, for creating a tsunami in the waters the moment I got back?"

"Honestly, no." Hermione said seriously. "I knew you would. Ron, too. We- err- sort of got to discussing it whenever you happened not to be around us at the time. And we decided that, since it was completely understandable, what we knew you planned to do, and since there would be absolutely no way for us to stop you doing it, that we'd best do what we do best and just help you with it."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you." Vanessa spoke, after a long silence. "I just thought you'd...well...Hermione, you tend to look at the big picture rather than the small one. When we were on the run in seventh year, searching for the Horcruxes, do you remember being against me going to Godric's Hollow? You thought we should have stayed focused on finding the Horcruxes, rather than take some detour."

"I still feel badly over that." Hermione admitted, with a small nod. "And you're right, I do tend to see the big picture, and not so much take into account the more emotional side of the issue. You shouldn't apologize." she added softly, shaking her head again. "It's not your fault for keeping it from us, it's _my_ fault for giving you _reason_ to keep it from us, even after all these years we've known each other."

The trio sat in silence for a few moments.

"Thanks." Vanessa said, breaking that silence.

"We've been in this together since we were eleven." Ron said simply. "what makes you think we'd've left you alone to go through it all a second time?"

"We'll help you save them." Hermione promised Vanessa, brown eyes intense as they met Vanessa's green. "I promise you we'll help you save them. Sirius, Lupin, Snape - all of them. We'll save them all, together, along with the future of magical Britain on the whole."

Unbidden, Vanessa found herself sitting up and leaning out to give Hermione a hug round her neck, so tight that Hermione started making choking noises after a few seconds. Vanessa drew away quickly, and Hermione was left rubbing her throat with an absent hand. "Great then." Vanessa said, smiling at her two friends. "Since you aren't against making some waves, do you think that we could manage to expose Wormtail and get Sirius out of Azkaban before the month is out?"

"However we do that, we'd better do it soon. I've nearly found myself just squeezing the little rat to death a dozen times already." Ron said darkly. "I don't let him sleep in my bed, either." Ron shuddered. "He sleeps under it, now."

"Yes, that will be something to think about." Hermione nodded, already deep in thought on the matter even as she spoke. "I'm sure between the three of us we can engineer a plausible enough scenario that will result in Pettigrew's exposure. But before we can even start on that," Hermione went on, looking directly at Vanessa. "we'll need to 'discover' the fact that Pettigrew is a rat Animagus, as well as that he has some very distinguishing features."

"I'll need to get into Azkaban and visit Sirius." Vanessa breathed, Hermione's implication not at all lost on her. "But how am I going to do _that_ to begin with?"

"You could ask McGonagall?" Ron suggested.

"It's the same underlining problem with that as with the rest of this plan." Hermione refuted her husband's suggestion. "Vanessa can't ask McGonagall without first having an explanation for her knowledge. I'm sorry to say this, Vanessa," She looked, indeed, apologetically to her red-haired friend. "but we just can't accomplish this before Hogwarts. We don't _know_ anything at this point in time, we can't do anything yet. Not unless we want to go totally off the rails and, I don't know, start Apparating all over the place, letting the whole world know we're not exactly ordinary children, and breaking into Azkaban or something else front-page worthy like that."

"We _could_." Vanessa said pointedly. "And we _could_ , if we did that, have all of Voldemort's Horcruxes rounded up in a matter of hours."

"And if we were caught, we'd be interrogated and imprisoned for illegal and unauthorized use of time travel on a scale never seen before." Hermione replied patiently. "If we just throw everything to the wind and act that recklessly, that carelessly...we could lose everything, Vanessa. We could lose the chance to save everyone you want to save. We could be stuck in Azkaban ourselves, while everyone else is out here dying."

"Fine, we'll stick to the plan and stay with the slow route." Vanessa conceded. "But I'd _like_ for Sirius to be freed before third year, at least. Who knows what an extra year or two of freedom would do for him? And, another problem besides Sirius that I want to get on top of as soon as possible is Pansy." she added.

"In more than one way, I'd imagine." Ron snickered, like he was _actually_ an eleven year old boy again. Vanessa and Hermione rolled their eyes nearly simultaneously.

"That won't be happening between us until seventh year, minimum." Vanessa said, smirking. "If ever." she went on, her smirk leaving as quickly as it had come. "She's going to be the biggest brat the world has ever seen - again. I never even tried to be her friend in the first timeline, let alone her girlfriend, though, so who knows? If I actually try, I might succeed. But that isn't really what I meant." she concluded, looking down at her tiny hands.

"I'm sure, like with the problem of Sirius," Hermione began, in consoling tones. "if we just be patient, and take time to brainstorm, we'll come up with a way to ensure Pansy is never hurt by her parents again."

"We'll find a way before she has to go back home next summer." Ron said fiercely, patting Vanessa's knee with not even a trace of the awkwardness any normal eleven year old boy would have exhibited in even _attempting_ such a gesture towards a _girl_ \- if they would even have attempted it at all. "I'm sorry." he added quickly, as Vanessa, at his comforting gesture, startled and jerked her leg away, as she felt an all too familiar flash of intense - and even nearly overwhelming - fear and panic shoot through her body.

"It's all right." Vanessa said quickly, willing her pounding heart to slow, and her muscles to relax. When it (they) finally did, she said, with a bit of a forced laugh, "Well, we all have a lot to think about, don't we?" for some odd reason or other she couldn't care to identify (perhaps the last vestiges of her time-travel-induced insanity).

"Definitely have a lot of side projects, on top of homework." Ron murmured, still gazing at Vanessa with a large amount of remorse.

"Oh, please, first year will be a cakewalk." Hermione snorted. "And second year, and third year - even for you two. Things shouldn't start getting hard until around OWL year. Which is another thing to consider. I mean, we can't have everyone thinking we're all prodigies, can we? Some of us will have to fake...difficulties, and the like."

"Why _can't_ we all let people think we're prodigies?" Ron countered, looking insulted. "I've never wanted to be Percy, the stupid prat," he continued on fondly; living with your brother's death tended to give you a new appreciation for them when you got them back again. "but it'd be nice to not get hounded by mum and dad about my marks, and to earn that prefect's badge properly." He shot a look at Vanessa that was decidedly guilty and apologetic. Vanessa just smiled and shrugged back at him. They both knew Dumbledore had only given Ron the badge because he had felt Vanessa had been under far too much pressure and stress as it was without needing the additional responsibilities of being a prefect.

"Don't you think it would be a little suspicious, and _impossibly_ coincidental, if the three, random new friends just _happened_ to turn out to also be three geniuses?" Vanessa put in, seeing Hermione's point.

Ron made no reply, though he did offer up a glare.

"How's Ginny?" Vanessa asked suddenly, quietly.

"Same as she was before, at this age." Ron grimaced. "Really annoying. But really cute. She reminds me of Rosie. Or rather, Rosie reminded me of Ginny, I suppose, what with...you know...blimey, time travel is confusing!" he burst out, laughing loudly. "Anyway, Ginny had that massive crush on you she had at this age in the original timeline, till she saw you on the front page of the Prophet and all. Saw your story. Mum and dad couldn't keep it away from her." Ron gave a sudden, alarming grin despite the sad tale he was telling. "Pretty sure she still has it, though. Probably thinks you're some tragic hero who needs love to recover from your horrible ordeals. That was what she thought of you the first go around, anyway, after she found out about how you were being treated. Remember, she used to always-"

"I remember better than you do." Vanessa interrupted, glaring. Then her expression softened. "I kept them all. All her little cards and drawings. I kept them in my room, in an old box in the closet. Cliche, I know, but...but you really...no one can possibly know just how much those meant to me, at the time, and years after." she finished softly. "It's just too bad they burned with the house, and now they don't even exist anymore. Not in this timeline, anyway."

"Not yet, anyway." Ron said quietly, though with a bit of a grin.

"Yeah." Vanessa smiled. "In the changed-for-my-purposes, but too-perfect-considering-our-present-circumstances-to-pass-up and immortal words of Arnold Schwarzenegger...'They'll be back.'"

Hermione broke into a fit of giggles, and Ron looked between the two women in nothing but pure and total confusion.

"Has either of you heard from Mynne?" Vanessa asked. "I've been in here a week now and she hasn't come to me yet. Even with her being the biggest slut in the world - and that's not an exaggeration, or an insult - I thought she'd have-"

Suddenly, there was a flash of green light, and, low and behold, Mynne appeared out of thin air, as tiny and gorgeous as ever (she looked exactly the same in her younger body as she had before coming back in time; fairies usually lived to be five hundred)...and also...

"Nessy? That you?" Mynne's voice rang out, loud and slurred. She wobbled in mid air, her wings beating almost erratically as she turned to stare at Vanessa. "Hah! I knew this day would come! The day when all of _you_ would be tiny, and _I'd_ be the big one! The one with the big feet, to step on your tiny faces! I knew the world would reward my faith someday...today..."

"Mynne? Are you- are you _DRUNK_?" Vanessa spluttered in utter disbelief.

"Only a little." Mynne assured (though, considering she was dropping a few centimeters in the air every few seconds, only to rise back up again, then drop again, Vanessa was as far from _reassured_ as any woman could be).

"I had no idea fairies could even _get_ drunk." Hermione stage-whispered, amusement written all over her face.

"Hey!" Mynne shouted, darting towards Hermione's face with all the coordination of a crazed housefly to jab a finger against Hermione's girlish little nose. "I'm a princess, as you know! A princess who can- who can rip out your eyeballs and play soccer with them, if you keep making fun of my whole entire race! Nessy, why don't you tell your human pet bitch to shove off!"

"Human pet bitch?" Ron repeated, seeming not to know whether he should be insulted on his wife's behalf, or very, very amused.

"You do realize that I'm a human, too, right?" Vanessa laughed, reaching out to snatch Mynne out of the air before she flew headlong into a wall or something.

"I didn't say you weren't human, did I?" Mynne retorted, squirming in Vanessa's gentle grip around her waist. "I just said that that beaver looking thing was your pet."

"I had no idea you had such strong feelings towards me, Mynne." Hermione commented dryly. "Remind me never to let you be drunk around me again."

"I don't have any strong feelings for _you_!" Mynne tossed her disheveled mane of green hair at Hermione, then dropped her head to Vanessa's hand and started rubbing her face against it like a cat. "I have strong feelings for Nessy here. Nessy, we have the Bond, you know. I made it after you saved my life in the forest. And you know the Bond is deeper than marriage. Or it might as well be marriage...so...so you and me...we're married, Nessy."

"Lovely." Vanessa said simply, dropping Mynne off on the bed covers.

"We never had a wedding, so- so when we have one, I want a dress made out of Devil's Snare. A live one!" Mynne proclaimed, almost shouted, tossing her arms up dramatically.

"We'll discuss the exact makeup of our wedding gowns later." Vanessa said firmly. "For right now, you need to get out of here. If anyone sees you-"

"Oh, fine!" Mynne interrupted, hovering a few inches over to Vanessa's leg, which she promptly began kicking at - and missing most of the time. "I see how it is! I see how you treat your wife! Maybe I should take your legs right here and now, how about _that_ , dear?"

Vanessa blinked. "You wouldn't."

"I would!" Mynne, on another pitiful excuse for a kick, lost her balance and fell back onto her butt. "If you keep this up. This- this treatment of the woman who- who married you, and stole your things while you were sleeping and tossed them in the ocean, and threw fruits at you when she was bored."

"First of all, no you wouldn't." Vanessa reiterated. "Second of all, the first and last things you just listed off never even happened! As for that middle one, I knew it was you the whole time, I just never said anything because it wasn't a big deal."

"How the hell do I get these...these _fat_ things off of you?" Mynne wondered, now banging her fists on Vanessa's right thigh.

"If I were still in my thirty-six-year-old body, that would have actually offended me." Vanessa said delicately. "As it is, I'm as thin as a twig in my eleven-year-old body, so you're really just coming off as incredibly cute. But seriously, get the fuck out of here. You have a kingdom to run, remember?"

"SCREW THE KINGDOM!" Mynne yelled quite suddenly - suddenly enough to startle Hermione (and Vanessa, whose heart experienced a sharp increase in its number of beats per second). "You know what? I thought I missed my mother, but she's done nothing this past month but-"

"A month?" Ron said, incredulous. "What're you on about? It's only been a week since we came back in time!"

Mynne stared at Ron, then thrust a hand out at him. A jet of green magic shot at him and struck him between the eyes. Ron let out a yelp of pain, slapping his hands to his forehead, where a large welt had appeared. "Now what was I saying? Oh yeah, screw the kingdom! My mother- the queen, you know...she's done nothing but tell me I need to get my act together and start proving I can take care of the whole kingdom, or else- or else I'll be exiled and disgraced." Mynne paused for a rather long time. "It's funny, it never bothered me before, the thought of being exiled, but now...right now...it's bothering me. Stupid bothering thoughts. I'll cut them in half and show them who's princess!"

"You should go do that. Right now, in fact." Vanessa spoke quickly. "Go show your mother just what kind of a princess you really are."

Mynne stared at Vanessa now, face full of wonder and awe. "Wow, Nessy. You give me _such_ good advice, I'm...I'm lucky to have you as a wife. I'll go and do that. Go tell that queeny bitch I'm not going to be singing her tune anymore - not that I ever did. And I'll tell her I..." Mid sentence, Mynne disappeared in another flash of green light.

For many minutes, neither Vanessa, Hermione, or Ron said a word. Then-

"Nightmare fuel." Hermione said, quite calmly. Vanessa laughed, and then Hermione laughed - and, once again, Ron was left out of the loop.

"Think you're ready to meet the family again?" Ron addressed Vanessa considerately, nodding towards the door. "They all want to see you - mum and dad especially, and first, to bring up the guardianship thing with you - but between Hermione and I, we managed to convince them you'd...well, respond better to other kids your age first." He flashed Vanessa a look of apology. "Mum thought it was a brilliant idea of me. Very mature and all that." he hurried on over that moment of awkwardness. "She's been thinking that of me a lot this time around. Accidentally did a few cleaning Charms in front of her, she was dumbstruck about it, but also, you know, totally pleased. Asked me where I'd learned it. I had to tell her I'd been reading a few of her household spellbooks, and that I thought she might've needed some help around the place. She thinks I'm Percy now, and Percy thinks I want to be him." Ron finished, with a visible shiver.

"You're not stealing that prefect badge away from me a second time." Vanessa said, half in warning, half in amusement. "If you don't have this new, responsible image of yours drowned in a lake by the time we get to Hogwarts...well, I'll leave you to your imagination on the matter, it'll be a lot more fun that way."

"So. Family?" Ron glowered. "Should I bring them in already?"

"Please do." Vanessa replied, running a hand through her hair on nervous reflex at the thought of coming face to face with so many dead loved ones again - especially one whom had been her first ever girlfriend (yes, Vanessa knew very well that she was thirty-six, that that girlfriend was ten, and that there would be _nothing_ happening between them, because the mere thought of such an occurrence brought forth a wave of disgust in Vanessa...and yet even so, the fact of memories past remained, and so, too, did the anxiety accompanying that fact).

The second Ron was out of Vanessa's private ward room, Vanessa took up a low murmur of, "The redheads are coming...the redheads are coming..." which elicited a great deal of snorting and giggling from Hermione (which, in hindsight, was probably a good thing, because it made her, them, appear much more like normal eleven-year-old girls - though, Vanessa _did_ have her wiggle room when it came to childish vs incredibly mature behaviors, on account of her PTSD, which, while being a very real truth, would also serve as a very handy excuse).

When the door opened again, and in came two incredibly familiar redheaded people (one of whom had been the closest thing to a mother Vanessa had ever had; one of the reasons Vanessa reacted how she next did), people long dead, people who had sent Vanessa her first ever Christmas presents, and who had had her over at their home several summers, and who had been with her at the Quidditch World Cup, and who later, in Vanessa's adult years, had attended Vanessa and Pansy's wedding, and who had twice babysat Violet-

Vanessa's mind recoiled at what she had almost remembered, shivered from where that line of thinking had nearly taken her, and she was not at all surprised to find that, when she had come back to the here and now, out of her own head and her recollections, she had tears flowing freely down her face.

Tears that were not born from grief and sorrow alone, but also from joy, and an incredible sense of relief, at seeing Mr. and Mrs. Weasley alive and well again.

"Hello, Vanessa, dear." Mrs. Weasley started kindly, softly, after she and Mr. Weasley had taken up seats at Vanessa's bedside (Hermione had disappeared from the room, saying she'd wait outside for Vanessa to call her in again, and give Vanessa and the Weasley parents some privacy). "My name is Molly Weasley, and this is my husband, Arthur. You've already met my son, Ronald."

Vanessa managed only a nod, due to the great lump in her throat. She would've liked to have said something to them about how Ron was a nice boy, and she liked him already, and thought they'd be great friends, or some other things that would both ensure Vanessa kept as close ties to this family as she had had in the original timeline, as well as ensure that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley would be a little more inclined to actually _want_ to try and become her new guardians...but Vanessa found that she just _couldn't_.

And that...that actually sort of alarmed her. She had no desire to revert back into the mute little girl she had been in her first childhood, who had been so stuck in her own head, thinking so much, _having_ so much that she had always wanted to say, but _couldn't_ and never had for so many reasons (mainly just sheer terror, though).

When finally Vanessa did manage to get her voice back, she said something far different than she had been thinking about saying. "I got a visit from an Auror a few days ago. A magical policeman, he said he was like." she added, for appearance's sake alone. "His name was Shacklebolt. Kingsley. I told him everything that happened that day a week ago, and about a whole bunch of other stuff going back a whole lot of years in my life, and after I was done, he told me he was going to get my aunt and uncle prosecuted - whatever that means - and that there's going to be a hearing to decide my 'status in the wizarding world', and that I wasn't going to get in trouble for what I did to them with magic, because I was protecting myself from them."

Vanessa had to work a little not to smile at the memory of meeting Kingsley again. He was just such a likable guy, and she had gotten close to him in the original timeline. Close enough to call him a friend (though, not quite a _good_ friend). She also had to resist smiling at her own words; the combination of her own, usual bluntness, and her consciously trying to display the directness of any real child her age, was really something to hear, she thought.

"It means," Mrs. Weasley responded, in quiet tones. "that your relatives will never be able to hurt you again. As for your status in the wizarding world, that means that, at this hearing, a decision will be made about just which magical family will be taking over care of you in the...absence of your aunt and uncle."

"They're going to jail." Vanessa said flatly. Almost flippantly. Ignorant of wizarding things (and a whole lot of other things) at this time though she was supposed to be, she didn't want people thinking she was - and treating her like she was - _unintelligent_. Like she was some kind of brain-damaged moron (although, admittedly, she _was_ brain-damaged; all those frying pans and boots to the head, and skull-on-wall impacts in her _first_ childhood hadn't _not_ had any detrimental effects on her, as she had long-ago learned). She had not been able to really blossom into her own, and so show the true depths of her sharpness and intelligence, until her late Hogwarts years, and then still clear into her adult years _after_ Hogwarts.

Vanessa was damn well going to see to it that she blossomed _much_ earlier than she had in the original timeline - and see to it that everyone _noticed_ her blossoming, and treated her accordingly.

"Yes, they are." Mr. Weasley nodded, in a way that it was almost a muscle spasm, a slight jerk of the head. His face was pale and serious, and had only grown more so at Vanessa's proclamation of her relatives' fates.

"I guess a lot of magical families will want to take me in." Vanessa spoke. "Since I'm famous and all."

"I would hope that wouldn't be anyone's reason for wanting to do so." Mrs. Weasley replied, looking more than a little nervous now. Vanessa instantly regretted her words; _of_ _course_ they would have had an effect on Mrs. and Mr. Weasley, seeing as _they_ were here as one of those magical families wanting to take her in.

"I don't think it's the reason of _every_ family." Vanessa hastened to do some damage control - some backtracking, if you will. "I'm sure most of them just want to be nice and really do want to take care of me and all. Just...I'm sorry." she said quietly, looking down at her positively tiny hands. "I guess I've lived with bad people for so long that I just think the worst of people, first thing, before thinking anything else." Which wasn't at all a lie. Though, it _was_ a way of thinking that Vanessa had _mostly_ outgrown by now, after all these years she had lived and just plain _grown_. Still, no, it most definitely had not been a lie. Not in the case of what she had just said, WHY she had just said it, and not in the case of her first childhood. She could very clearly remember thinking every raised hand would come down in a slap, or that every expression of anger on an adult's part would result in her getting a very nasty thrashing in the next heartbeat later, or that every good thing done or given to her had been done and given with the purpose of being snatched away, as the Dursleys had so often done to her for cruelty's sake.

Indeed, when she had gotten her first Weasley sweater in the original timeline, she had not dared to even wear it for those first several weeks after getting it, for fear that she would come to like it, love it, and then that it would be taken away from her...

Mrs. Weasley fixed Vanessa with a very motherly, very soothing look as she leaned forward just so to lay her hand overtop Vanessa's. "It's all right-" the Weasley mother began. _Began_ , but never finished, because Vanessa made another mistake just then. At that hand moving so rapidly and unexpectedly towards her, Vanessa, heart exploding in her chest, automatically shot her _own_ hand out to intercept, and she slapped Mrs. Weasley's away.

"I'm sorry!" Vanessa said loudly, hating her voice for going so high, with her fear and panic, and with her frustration with herself; at this rate, the Weasleys soon likely wouldn't even _want_ her. She'd be too much trouble, too difficult, too exhausting to try and care for, to have under their roof. Because this was the tip of the iceberg that was Vanessa. There were her night terrors, where she would wake up screaming and sweating, kicking and punching and struggling against nothing (or Pansy, at the times when her wife had had to actually wake Vanessa from her nightmarish memories; Pansy had gotten more than a few bruises and scratches over the years of their marriage in this manner), and there were the odd but also embarrassing habits Vanessa had developed, such as always keeping a light on in her room, the door wide open, and her body turned so she could sleep facing that open doorway - the better to see her abusers approaching her in the middle of the night to lay hands on her - and then there was the fact that-

"It's all right, dear." Mrs. Weasley managed to finish this time, her hands held tightly to her chest as if she had been burned (a feat she was able to achieve precisely _because_ she had refrained from moving to touch Vanessa so suddenly again). Despite her words, Vanessa would have to have been blind to have missed those wide eyes, and that deathly pale look that had come over the woman's face. Or the way she and her husband were now glancing at each other, silently communicating in a way Vanessa dearly missed having once done with Pansy. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I shouldn't have tried to...not after the terrible things you've been through."

"Am I going to come live with you?" Vanessa asked, desperate to rid herself of this flooding of emotions that she felt like drowning in. "Ron's really nice - funny, too."

Another exchange of glances from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

"We wanted to ask your permission first, because we know you don't even know us, and we know that this must all be very shocking for you, all these changes, but...yes." Mr. Weasley said quietly. "If you'd like, we could apply for guardianship over you. It would only be until you were seventeen - the legal age of adulthood in the wizarding world." he added, and Vanessa felt satisfied with herself and her actions of the past week; people were already being mindful of the fact that she had grown up in a Muggle home with no knowledge whatsoever of anything magical (or, at least, she would have been so, had she not been a time-traveler and all the rest).

"I would like that." Vanessa said, sincerely and whole-heartedly. "But," she continued on. "if I do get to stay with you, I want to pay you for it. I know I have a whole lot of money in the magical world, and it wouldn't feel right to me if I didn't use some of it to pitch in." she went on quickly, before either Weasley parent could interrupt her - and as if she were just making this suggestion naturally, as a matter of course (and perhaps, to her dislike, ignorance), rather than because she _knew_ damn well that the Weasley family was considerably poor, and could really use the extra gold.

It didn't seem like Mr. and Mrs. Weasley wanted to let _Vanessa_ in on the fact of their poorness, any more than _she_ wanted to let them know that she knew they were poor, because, after a short silence and many exchanges of looks and shakes of the head that Vanessa supposed she would have actually missed had she been the child she had been in the original timeline, Mr. Weasley gave Vanessa a small smile and another tight nod.

"That's very kind of you, and if you're sure-" he started.

"I'm sure." Vanessa interrupted firmly.

"Then we'll see what arrangements we can make about that." Mr. Weasley finished, as if he hadn't been interrupted, yet still also acknowledging her confirmation.

Vanessa smiled with her relief. She would have payed Snape in the original timeline for taking care of her all those years, if she had been then the woman that she was _now_ (and if he hadn't died in her seventh year in the course of his role as a double agent; Vanessa still hated herself, would _never forgive herself_ , for actually _believing_ that, after everything he had done for her, he could have killed Dumbledore in cold blood, and been a true and loyal Death Eater. She would never forgive herself for _hating him for it_ , and for refusing his attempts at explaining to her, towards the end, just where his heart had always, truly been. If she had just stayed, if she had just given him his chance to explain his double agent role to her...he would never have gone off and did what he had done - tried to kill Nagini for her, the believed to be final Horcrux at the time - and gotten himself killed in the process).

"Are _you_ sure?" Vanessa fixed the Weasley parents with a look, and spoke a true tone, that was pure thirty-six-year-old woman, and must have seemed extremely at odds with her eleven-year-old body. "About having me? I'm not going to be easy to care for, you can see that already. I don't want to put myself on you and then..." _And then have you change your mind about keeping me_ , she finished silently, shocking herself with that thought. She definitely had not completely been able to eradicate that particular way of thinking about the world and the people in it, then, not even now, after all these years as an adult, after all these years of having learned to trust, plain, as well as to trust in the sincerity and the innate goodness of the majority of people.

Mrs. Weasley looked a little sadly at Vanessa, like she somehow _knew_ what Vanessa had not said aloud, while Mr. Weasley just looked kind of startled. Maybe even shocked. And yet, also, like he knew what she had not said.

"Vanessa, we wouldn't have come here if we weren't sure." Mrs. Weasley replied, that sadness on her face evident, too, in her voice. Her hand made a sort of jerking motion towards Vanessa, then reversed course and came back to her chest, as if she had wanted to do something like pat Vanessa on the hand or arm, but had then remembered just what had happened the last time she had tried something like that with Vanessa.

Fortunately, Vanessa could not trigger off _herself_ in being the one to initiate any sort of physical contact. She earned herself a surprised look from Mrs. Weasley when she reached out to lay a hand atop the Weasley mother's. "All right."

Vanessa would like to have just left it at that, right there on that note. But she couldn't. There were possibilities, consequences, she had to ensure that she, and everyone she loved, would be proactively protected against. If two decades of battle and war had taught her anything, it was that the effect to her cause was a complete and total bitch, and she had learned to always do her best to account for it - for _anything_ \- before it could happen.

"But have you thought about when Voldemort comes back?" Vanessa went on ruthlessly. "Hagrid told me that most people don't believe he's dead," She adopted a slightly louder tone to be heard over the mini shriek from Mrs. Weasley, and to override the horrible wince from Mr. Weasley, and his open mouth that meant he was about to interrupt. "and that he's still out there somewhere. What if he comes back? He'll want to come after me first thing, won't he? Since I defeated him." All right, Vanessa had not actually been told that by Hagrid in _this_ timeline, because she had arrived in _this_ timeline _after_ Hagrid had come and told her she was a witch, and taken her to Diagon Alley, etc, however, Vanessa _did_ remember being told such a thing by Hagrid when he had come to fetch her in the _original_ timeline (she remembered it so clearly because it had so _terrified_ the easily-terrifyable little thing she had been back then).

"I can see already that you're made of much stronger stuff than I - than anyone - could have ever imagined." Mr. Weasley spoke, after the longest silence yet. "So I won't lie to you, Vanessa. Yes, we have thought about that, and we're willing to risk it if it means giving you a proper home for once in your life."

"Well, I'm not!" Vanessa said fiercely. Much more so than she had ever intended. She could not have helped it, however. Her memories of the original timeline, and the emotions they brought her, coupled with her _present_ emotions...it was all having too much of an affect on her. "If I come and live with you, I-" She froze in mid sentence. She had been _about_ to say that she wanted to throw all her money at the Burrow to ensure that it would be as well protected as Hogwarts, but then she had remembered that she could not just go babbling off about runes and wards and magical concealment charms - at least, not at this point in time. She had _also_ remembered that that school was the exact _opposite_ of very well protected, despite everyone saying to the contrary, seeing as Voldemort himself had gotten into it in her first year, a Horcrux had gotten smuggled into it in her second year, the supposed mass murderer Sirius Black had gotten into it in her third year, along with Peter, the _actual_ mass murderer, and that...well, you get the idea.

Vanessa really had no idea where Hogwarts had even _gotten_ such a blatantly false reputation. Maybe the staff had spread it around because they knew that otherwise they wouldn't have even a single kid in the place, because no sane adult/parent would let any kid of theirs attend. It actually made a disturbing and massive amount of sense, seeing as Vanessa seemed to remember that, in the original timeline, one of her housemates had once said something about not being stupid enough to write home to their parents about everything that had been going on, because it would have resulted in their being pulled out of Hogwarts or something (in fact, if Vanessa remembered correctly, more than a few students _had_ been pulled out of Hogwarts in her later school years).

Oh, to hell with it. Vanessa was going to just do it anyway. She had her imagination enough to come up with a good enough explanation for her knowledge, and besides that, she knew it wasn't like anyone would instantly jump to the highly impossible and fantastical conclusion that she was a time-traveler from the future, even if she _did_ start saying things she couldn't possibly know (though it MIGHT make people think she was a Polyjuiced impostor or something, which she really couldn't have happen, either).

Mrs. and Mr. Weasley were staying silent, watching Vanessa attentively, and almost carefully, and vanessa knew they were just waiting for her to start speaking again. So she did.

"When I went to Diagon Alley with Hagrid, when we went into this bookshop to get my textbooks," Vanessa began, in slow, measured tones, trying now to consciously sound like a child her age again. "I saw some books with...well, the titles talked about magical protections. Wards, barriers, I think the words were. I wanted to say that, if I'm going to live with you, then I'll want as many of those barriers put around your house as possible to keep you safe. You know, since I'll be at the top of Voldemort's must-kill-today list when he comes back."

Mrs. and Mrs. Weasley looked at one another, and Vanessa knew they were likely coming up with some theories and thoughts about how Vanessa was just _so_ horribly wanting to safeguard herself because she wanted to avoid being _abused_ by anyone again, and the poor _abused_ girl just didn't want to admit to it (or perhaps she didn't even realize her own reasons, herself), rather than their just seeing and accepting Vanessa's words and explanations for precisely what they were, and nothing more or less.

"We can do that, if it would make you feel safe." said Mrs. Weasley, giving Vanessa a motherly look, thereby confirming Vanessa's suspicions as to just what conclusion they would reach from her proposal.

"It would." Vanessa said firmly, albeit with a smile that probably seemed a little bit _weird_ in contrast with her tone and the subject matter alike. "Ron told me he has a lot of brothers, and one sister." Vanessa changed the subject, and her smile grew wider and more joyful as she went on. "I've never had any friends. I think I'll like that, being around so many."

"Well, you'll not be around them all right _now_ \- though they did come." Mrs. Weasley frowned. "We wouldn't want to overwhelm you."

Vanessa had her mouth open to say that it wouldn't overwhelm her, when she had the sudden realization that, yes, it _would_ overwhelm her. Her reaction to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley was proof enough of that. If she were to meet the _rest_ of the Weasley family, especially right now...she did not know...if she would...

"When's the hearing?" she said instead, trying to push those burgeoning emotions down.

"It's set for tomorrow morning - at the Ministry of Magic." Mr. Weasley answered, with a slight smile, as if he though he was...was humoring her or something. Like he knew just why she had changed the subject, why she had avoided answering the question of whether she would be overwhelmed or not. Well then, either he was more perceptive than Vanessa remembered, or he had always been, and she just hadn't noticed. It would make sense if he was, because he had, after all, survived the First Wizarding War against Voldemort. Idiots didn't survive wars, especially wars they actually had _fought_ in. "We'll be back here in the morning to take you to it, along with Auror Shacklebolt."

"Okay. Thanks." Vanessa said shortly, channeling her inner Pansy a great deal. And then kicking it up to eleven as she added, "Can you leave now, but send my friends in again?"

It was with carefully blank faces that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley nodded, voiced their cooperation, and left the room. And, in the brief interval in which there was no one at all in her room, Vanessa thought that she had most certainly offended them, and she felt a pang of intense, almost painful guilt. This guilt, however, was almost immediately dispelled. There was nothing to be done about it now, and anyway, this was just how Vanessa was, and the Weasleys would just have to get used to it. They _would_ get used to it, in time, Vanessa felt certain.

After all, they had gotten used to how she had been in the original timeline. They would get used to how she was in _this_ timeline, too.

"That was fast." Ron commented upon his entrance, albeit with a cautious look over his shoulder at the door.

"I made it fast." Vanessa replied, running her hands through her own hair in a show of anxiety that she had, even after all these years, never managed to put an end to. "And I think I hurt them, too."

"No use in worrying about it now." Ron said sympathetically. "Anyway, I've done that, myself, a few dozen times over since we came back. It's just gonna happen, Ness. We're adults trying to play at kids here - no pun intended."

"Yeah." Vanessa nodded, and wrenched her hands away from her hair with great effort, to place them on her stomach. "Right. We'll slip up, we'll make mistakes, we'll puzzle people, and we'll upset people, and we'll hurt them. And that's just how it's going to be. I just wish it didn't _have_ to be."

"We all do." Hermione said quietly.

"On a happier note," Vanessa began with a grin. "I'm really, really looking forward to first year; the only year at Hogwarts where nothing and no one was trying to kill me."

"Not true. Quirrell/You-Know-Who cornered you in that corridor that one time." Ron countered. "It was around Christmas, if I remember it right."

"It was around Christmas." Vanessa confirmed, laughing softly. "And it was still a happy event for me, because that was the first of many times Sev saved my life." And it had been the very first time Snape had showed just how much he cared for her, beyond even his teaching her sign language all throughout that first year in the original timeline, and brewing her all those Calming Draughts, and - in the absence of Vanessa's ability to attend classes without having an anxiety meltdown - taking it upon himself to tutor her in all her subjects; Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Astronomy (many of Vanessa's very first, truly happy memories came from times spent relaxing under the stars with Snape), History of Magic, and Herbology. There, when Snape had come flying out of nowhere to place himself between Vanessa and Quirrell/Voldemort - when he had not even hesitated to engage Quirrell in a duel so fierce that it was nothing but a blur in Vanessa's memory (and a blur that evoked feelings of awe and pride inside of her towards the man who had been as good as a father to her, even to this day) - Snape had shown Vanessa that he was more than willing to _die_ for her, even back then, when he had only known her for not quite even four months.

"Listen, guys." Vanessa said suddenly, taking a deep breath, releasing it, and eyeing her two best friends imploringly. "I want you to know that, while I had everything to gain in coming back here, you had everything to _lose_. And you did lose it all, and you did it for me, and I can never tell you just how much that means to me. But I can tell you that I realize all that you sacrificed for the sake of helping me. That I acknowledge it, and I understand it, and I-"

"That's sweet of you, but don't say it." Hermione interrupted gently. "Don't say you're sorry, because you shouldn't be. One of the many other things that Ron and I discussed when you weren't around - besides that we knew you'd want to do your best to save everyone you lost the first time, and damn the consequences - was exactly that: what we'd be sacrificing if we went back with you."

"We made the choice." Ron tried for a helpless sort of shrug, even as he looked down at his hands with an expression of nothing but deep, adult anguish on his childish face. "I'm not saying it was easy - because it wasn't; it was the hardest choice I've ever made in my life - but we made it. You didn't force us to make it; we could have damn well just told you to sod off to the past on your own while we stayed in the present - future, whatever - and either kept up the fight there, or just gave Britain up as a lost cause and run off to the states to try and find our kid. Lived out the rest of our lives peacefully like that." Ron lifted his gaze to Vanessa's, and gave a feeble kind of grin. "We made the choice, Ness, so don't go feeling all guilty on us, 'cause you've got nothing to feel guilty about. We're here now, and there's no going back, so instead of getting hung up on bad memories and hurtful choices, let's just focus on keeping the people we care about from dying all over again, and keep Britain from going to complete and total hell - again."

"You left your kid-" Vanessa started.

"To get back your wife and _your_ kid, and to get back Sirius, Lupin, Tonks, Moody, Dumbledore, Fred and George, Percy, Ginny, and even Snape - who, no matter how nice he was to _you_ , was always a complete and utter _git_ to Hermione and I." Ron overrode her fiercely. "And who knows who else I'm forgetting here?"

"Cedric." Vanessa supplied, in a toneless whisper, unable to look him in the eyes. "And you _know_ that Sev was always a great deal _less_ of a git to you two than he was to the rest of the student body, on account of you two being my best friends, and him not wanting to hurt me by hurting _you_." she couldn't help but add, which got a snort from Ron.

"Anyway, what Ron means is that we'll never see Rosie again," Hermione spoke softly, eyes glistening with unshed tears. "but that the separation is worth it, when balanced against all the lives we'll be saving."

"My daughter for my siblings." Ron laughed. It wasn't a nice laugh. "My little Rosie for Fred, for George and Percy, and for Ginny. I made the choice, in the end, the same way I used to make the choice as an Auror. I'd leave Rosie at home to go out and track down dark wizards and witches; save lives, protect people. I'd made that choice hundreds of times before, and this choice...this wasn't any different, ultimately."

Vanessa found she had nothing to say to that. And it was a good thing, too, because in the silence there came first a knock on the door, and then the door swung open, and in walked someone she most definitely did not want to have catch her - them - acting like a thirty-six-year-old woman, and whom she had definitely not expected to come and visit her here in the hospital (at least, not before they had even _met_ in this timeline): Severus Snape.

 _Well hello, tsunami_ , Vanessa thought. _You're really unexpected, but not unwanted. So long as Voldemort himself doesn't show up here looking to do me in, I think I can handle this._

Snape stepped further into the room, his cloak billowing out behind him, his expression so terribly conflicted as he gazed down upon her, and yet even so, he stood tall, stood rigidly, precision in his every movement, so exactly as Vanessa had always remembered...

Okay, maybe she _wouldn't_ be able to handle this particular encounter.

All her mind held now was a rush of memories, of long nights spent studying under Snape, spent learning from him, spent getting to know him, slowly, agonizingly getting him to smile and laugh, and just generally loosen and open up alike. All the times he had hugged her, held her, stroked her hair as if she really _was_ his daughter, as if _he_ was really her father, the times he had calmed her, eased her anxiety, brushed away her tears, put an end to her trembling, to her whimpering, and, on most nights, her screaming and thrashing. He had placed a spell on her four-poster, and every single time she would awaken so troubled, he would rush up to Gryffindor Tower from his private quarters, without fail...

They had played chess together, exploding snap, and, several times, even hide and seek (in Vanessa's later years, Snape always swore that he had only indulged her so on that last one because it had been a means of further getting _her_ to open up to him and to trust him, to relax around him, and yet that did not account for the smiles Snape always had worn during such games).

On a cold October day, Snape had gone out of his way to take twelve-year-old Vanessa to Godric's Hollow, to see the graves of her parents. And it was there that he had knelt down and wrapped his arms around her, when she had decided to sit on the ground and stare at the headstones, and cry her little eyes out.

By then, their relationship had become much more than just student and teacher, though not quite had it yet become the relationship of an as-good-as father and his as-good-as daughter that it had been in Vanessa's later Hogwarts years. Those later years, when Snape had gone with her into Diagon Alley to help her choose a dress for the Yule Ball, and when he had taken her to the World Cup, and when he had actually - in a fit of more rage than Vanessa had ever seen from him in her entire life - cursed Dolores Umbridge, when he had learned about the woman's abuse of Vanessa during detentions (forcing Vanessa to repeatedly commit ritual acts of self-harm - acts that Vanessa had taken incredible pains to hide from everyone around her, because old habits instilled into her over a lifetime of abuse died very, very hard). That had been the end of Umbridge's interference at Hogwarts - and very nearly her life - for Snape's curse had been so nasty that she had had to be taken to St. Mungo's, where she had resided for many, many months after.

It had also nearly been the end of Severus Snape (and his career). It would have been, if it had not been for the interference of Amelia Bones, one of the very few honest, fair, and just people at the Ministry of the time.

And anyway, it had all had a happy ending, because with Umbridge removed from Hogwarts in the fashion that she had been, and the shitstorm that had followed in the wake of the public learning that the woman had been abusing, not just a child, but a child who had already suffered far too much abuse in her life, Fudge had been forced to blink, so to speak - to back off on his attempts at trying to control Hogwarts and Dumbledore. Attempts which had ceased at the end of that same year, anyway, when Fudge and many others had witnessed Voldemort with their own eyes in the Ministry atrium, just moments after his duel with Dumbledore, and his attempt at possessing Vanessa.

"See you around." Ron's voice roused Vanessa out of her torrent of memories, and the emotions that accompanied them. He was on his feet and pulling Hermione from the room by the hand, not as a child would another child, but as a husband would his wife; though, he did not seem to care much that he was making such a great and obvious mistake in front of a man as sharp and observant as Vanessa knew Snape was.

Although, again, it wasn't as if Snape (or anyone else) would just jump to the conclusion of "time traveler", whatever the behaviors of Ron, Hermione, or Vanessa.

Snape had reached Vanessa's bed now, and all either of them could do was stare at each other. The former, at the latter for looking like his dead best friend/eternal love reincarnate, and the latter at the former for being her all-but-father reincarnate. The former's face was marred in anguish, in guilt and in shock, while the latter's face betrayed none of her own, definite anguish and guilt, for never would she forgive herself for being the cause of the former's death (even if it had been a little indirectly; that was all that Vanessa's wife had been able to convince her of over the years, all Pansy had been able to shift Vanessa's thoughts on the matter). But while Vanessa may have been able to hold her own guilt, her own sorrow, she could not bear to stand the sight of it on the face of the man who was, in everything but blood, her father. Because this look, so haunting, so torturous, had long ago been done away with, replaced with joy and relief as more and more he had grown closer to Vanessa in the original timeline.

"I don't blame you for it, you know." Vanessa found the words coming out of her mouth before she could even think. And those words were not the words of a child, but the words of a woman. Snape startled, and he stared at her now with confusion, and yet also with...tremulous hope, as if he could not allow himself to belief she was saying what she was saying to him. That which he so desperately needed to hear from her (and had, many times over, in the original timeline). Vanessa drew in a breath, finding herself with no choice but to go on, and, indeed, that she _wanted_ to go on now, consciously, deliberately, and damn all else, because this man, this brave, kind, and yes, _hurt_ man...was a man she considered her father. She was going to do this, say this, and damn all else. Damn the timeline, damn secrecy, because _damnit_ she could _not_. Keep this. From her father. It would eat her up inside, tear her apart, _murder her_. She couldn't. She wouldn't. While Vanessa was not at urge to just throw herself into Snape's arms, into her _father's_ arms, for she was an adult, had had a few good years of being a parent, herself, and as such had no pressing desire for a parental figure in her life...she could not delay the tears, could not stop the shaking of her body. Could not help for the wave of emotion going through her body, and lighting up her face with a wobbly smile.

"Mom's death." Vanessa carried on, her voice rising in pitch. "I don't blame you for it, Sev. I never have. And I never will."

"H-how do you know...?" Snape trailed off, looking equal parts terrified, confused, shocked, and relieved and grateful.

"This won't make any sense," Vanessa locked eyes with her father, and drew herself up in her bed. "but I got a second chance. A chance to come back here, and keep the people I love from dying again."

Indeed, Snape looked nothing but bewildered, until, behind those black eyes, Vanessa saw his sharp mind begin to work, and then...

"You're a time traveler."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Author's Note**_

Hey, it's the author! Given what's being going on my life, I wasn't sure I wanted to - or even COULD - update this story in particular, considering its subject matter. But, I reached a really annoying writer's roadblock on Rise of a Light Lady, which is why I haven't updated THAT in a week now, so I really found myself with no choice here.

So um...please enjoy, please review, and look forward to more (maybe not necessarily more of THIS story, though - I hate writer's block!).

P.S: The voice I imagine in my head for the Horcrux is Billy Zane as Ansem from Kingdom Hearts 1 - especially that whole bit in the cave at the start of the game! So, um, if anyone ELSE wants to imagine it too, that's fine by me! :D

 _ **End of A/N**_

* * *

"Twenty-five years from now, in the year two-thousand and sixteen." Vanessa spoke, both confirming Snape's chosen conclusion, and answering the question that she knew would have been his first. "That's the time I'm from."

"And why would you undertake such a journey?" Snape questioned, after regaining much of his composure - his usual calm, his coolness. He was leaning in towards her, and his voice was so low as to be almost a whisper; he was minding the fact that they could be overheard by those outside the door _much_ more than Vanessa, Hermione, and Ron had.

"Voldemort." Vanessa said simply. Snape's face contorted at the name, but, surprisingly (given that he was, at this point in time, at the very _much_ of his development into becoming a better human being), he did not snarl at her to "not say the name" or some such other visceral response that was his usual whenever someone happened to say it around him. "In my timeline, four years from now, he regained a body by way of a dark resurrection ritual, and my blood. His mistake." she added with a wholly, womanly laugh of relish, despite Snape's look of both confusion and horror, which earned her a very familiar glare from the man. "The next three years were nothing but battles and war. I killed him - or so everyone thought - when I was just shy of eighteen, and ended that war. Eight years later, he came back for a third time, and started another war. This one lasted a decade, and it saw Britain reduced to rubble, overrun by dark creatures, and under his complete control. Myself and others kept on fighting him, but we came to realize we couldn't beat Voldemort conventionally. We couldn't liberate Britain - nor could the other nations, and believe me, they did try." Vanessa sighed, and performed a very adult motion of running a hand through her hair. This gave Snape his time to intervene.

"And that would be when you decided to travel back in time." Snape surmised, looking very pale (he had been growing ever more so throughout Vanessa's little history lesson). "When you had no other option left to you. No way of salvaging the situation. No hope."

"We have hope now." Vanessa replied, grinning. "We know everything, and Voldemort knows nothing, which is a hell of a lot fairer odds than any I've had before in my life."

"More than fair." Snape agreed slowly, seeming almost preoccupied. Then, gazing at her with a sudden intensity, he said, "We knew each other, didn't we? In your timeline? You hid your emotions on seeing me admirably enough, but not...quite...enough."

"Thanks for the backhanded compliment." Vanessa laughed, then quickly stifled that laughter on Snape giving her another glare. "We knew each other, yes. You were my dad." she said warmly, softly, with nothing of her emotions held back for Snape to hear, see, and feel.

Snape looked absolutely dumbstruck, and totally unsure as to how to respond to such an admission. Vanessa would have liked to have seen pride and pleasure in his features at this knowledge, but she couldn't see any in all that shock. Finally, he managed to choke out, "I was your...?"

"I'll show you it all in a pensieve later, if you want." offered Vanessa, shrugging. "We'll have plenty of time for it. All you really need to know is that I'm here to keep you, and others, from being killed over the course of the next two decades, to prevent two wars from breaking out _in_ those two decades, and to put a permanent end to Voldemort. And that starts right here, and right now, with me telling you that Professor Quirrell is playing host to the spirit of Voldemort, and that it would be preferable if we offed him a good round five months before you did in the original timeline when you stumbled across him trying to kill me at Christmas."

"'We.'" Snape noted quietly, in almost a hiss, after an almost mechanical nod of acknowledgement of all that Vanessa had said. "Who else has come back with you on this mission?"

"Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger - and yes, you knew them before, too." Vanessa added, anticipating the question (or, at least, the musing). "Ron sucked at Potions and Hermione was brilliant at it, but it still took you a while to lay off them."

Snape snorted, and looked at her in a way that said plainly: _Oh, so you're going to accuse me of something I haven't even done yet?_

Vanessa felt a flash of embarrassment, realizing that there _had_ been some accusation coloring her voice, but even so, she did not lower her gaze from Snape's.

"We have quite a lot to discuss, but we're not going to do it here." Snape said finally. "Would having you and your companions in my office after the Welcoming Feast be too late to...prevent certain unfortunate happenings?"

"No." Vanessa shook her head. "Nothing really happened in my first year until Halloween; Quirrell let a troll in so he could try and steal the Sorcerer's Stone, though I never realized it at the time." She hesitated on Snape's raised eyebrow being directed at her. "I was different, the first time around. I was shy, mute, and anxiety-and-PTSD-ridden. It was only after years of spending time with you that I broke out of my shell, so to speak. You taught me so _much_ , and not just schoolwork. You taught me how to use sign language, you taught me how to trust, how to love, how to hope and dare, you-"

"I don't need to hear this." Snape cut her off quickly, looking borderline panicked. "I'd...like the opportunity to review any memories you have concerning me later, as you said - but you're right in saying that there isn't any pressing need for me to know such things. What's important is stopping the Dark Lord, once and for all."

"Sorry." said Vanessa, looking away. That look on Snape's face, that panic, reminded her of far too many times when he had been worried about her as a child.

"Considering how you say you were in the other timeline," Snape started briskly, and Vanessa looked to him once more. "I gather, then, that the happenings of the past few days have _not_ , in fact, happened before?"

"It did happen...eventually." Vanessa retorted. "I hid my abuse for months before it all came out, the first time around. As I said, you took over my care, became my guardian, then there was a great deal of publicity, and then the Dursleys had a trial and went to prison. I've just...compressed the events, is all."

"Which resulted in my coming here to visit you, and your telling me about your being a time traveler." Snape's voice (and his look) was incredibly pointed. "Let us hope that you haven't altered the course of events in any OTHER significant ways - ways that would be... _detrimental_...to our mission of ending the Dark Lord."

"I haven't." Vanessa retorted bitingly, glaring at her as-good-as father for the first time in two decades. Snape's lips parted, and he grew pale again, and Vanessa knew she had just thrown him oh-so painfully into his own past, into a time when her mother had looked at him like that, and she felt instantly remorseful (she also started mentally kicked herself in the ass for her lack of sensitivity and mindfulness).

"Let's hope." Snape merely repeated. He hesitated. Then, "I...understand that your guardianship hearing is tomorrow. In your timeline I...became your guardian. In the interests of causality, or the avoidance of...would you be averse to my sending in an application to the Ministry?"

 _Causality?_ _Yeah, right,_ Vanessa thought, amused. She knew why Snape wanted to this, and it was _not_ about the timeline. It was about him knowing, now, that, in another time, another world, he had become something greater, something more, something... _human_ , again, after so long of feeling self-loathing, bitterness, and pain, and forcing himself to go on every day purely for the sake of a promise made to Dumbledore to keep _her_ , Vanessa, safe, and now Snape had that hope that in _this_ time, in _this_ world, he could achieve what his other self had. Just as in the original timeline, at this point in time, Snape was _afraid_ of the thought of feeling _good_ , and yet, at the same time, he desperately wanted those feelings.

Could Vanessa spurn that desire of Snape's, spurn _him_ , in favor of living a happy family life with the Weasleys? What would Snape become without Vanessa in his life so intimately, so completely, as she had been in the original timeline, when she had been under his constant, 24/7 care? Or rather...what would Snape _remain_? Remain in darkness, in self-hate, in anger, in these things that would make him far more prone to behavior and actions that would be...

"You're him." Vanessa said finally.

Snape gave her an infamous, single eyebrow raise. "Pardon?"

"My father. My Snape." Vanessa replied, looking him in the eyes. "No, that's not right. There is no 'my' father, or 'my' Snape. There's just Snape. You've always been him, you'll always be him. So when I tell you now that I-"

"Of course." Snape was the one to look away now, his voice a mutter, and holding a great bitterness. "You'd prefer to live with the Weasleys; I did speak to them before coming in here."

"No." Vanessa smiled. "If you'd shut up and let me talk, I'd tell you that I'm changing my mind. I want to live with you again, not the Weasleys. I know you better than anyone, Sev, and I know what you want, what you need, and I know, too, that it was only ever me keeping you from falling into darkness, and I'm not going to let you do that, because then I might as well have lost you all over again. And besides, it'll be more practical for us to be together all the time - we can make plans and such more easily than we could if I were away from you." Snape, lost for words, simply gazed at Vanessa. "The words you're searching for are 'thank' and 'you.'" Vanessa added helpfully. Snape (in true Snape fashion) scowled, but Vanessa could not possibly have missed the tinge of warmth that came to his gaze.

"I want to ask a favor of you." Vanessa suddenly spoke up again after a few moments.

"You're holding all the cards here." Snape replied, with a very pointed look of discomfort at the notion.

"Right." Vanessa laughed. But then, growing serious again, she went on with, "I don't want you telling Dumbledore who and what I am."

"And why, might I ask, would you want to keep your most valuable ally out of the loop?" Snape questioned, with a clear exasperation in his voice.

Vanessa laughed again, only this time it was full, loud, and incredibly ugly. "My _ally_? _That_ old shitstain? Look, in the original timeline you didn't find out what he did to me, what he had planned for me, until much later. But when you did...when you knew what he wanted to do to me...what he was using me for...your words were something along the lines of, 'So you've been raising her all this time like a pig for slaughter?'"

Snape's eyes widened, and his lips parted in equal parts confusion and shock. "What?"

"My whole life, Sev, from the very moment I survived the Killing Curse that night in Godric's Hallow, when Dumbledore decided to have Hagrid retrieve me, when he decided to put me with the Dursleys...he knew what they were going to do to me. He knew how they were. And he put me there on purpose. It was strategy, it was calculated. It was a plan. All of it, Sev! My entire _life_ was nothing to Dumbledore. _I_ was nothing to him! It was a game, and I was a game piece. I had no feelings, no wants, no desires...I don't know if he ever even saw me as a real person. He took the time to get to know me just so he could manipulate me, ensure that I'd stumble on down the path he set for me!" Vanessa, shuddering and gasping for breath, swallowed both tears and mucus. Snape looked almost horrified at her display of raw emotion, and yet also...very clearly upset by what she was revealing to him. "And his endgame? It was to have me be killed by Voldemort! I was never meant to survive the war, believe me, Sev! Albus Dumbledore is evil wrapped up in a nice, and highly hypocritical package!"

"I don't doubt you." Snape said softly, after a long silence, his dark eyes glinting with rage - but not for her. "And I...I'm sorry for what you've gone through." he offered tentatively, and incredibly awkwardly. " And I promise not to tell Albus a damn thing about your true nature, or the nature of your companions that came back with you."

Vanessa, driven by so many feelings and impulses, all but threw herself into Snape's arms, much to the shock of the latter. "I knew I could still count on you, Sev, no matter what timeline I'm in." Snape's subsequent attempt at physical comfort was even more awkwardly done than his prior verbal one; he clumsily, almost gingerly wrapped his arms around her, and began patting her back.

"I won't tell him anything," Snape said overhead. "but I _will_ kill him first thing when I get back to Hogwarts."

Vanessa drew away from Snape, then said, with the utmost seriousness, and utter deadpan: "Sixth year."

"Just one more of the many stories I'll want to hear from you..." muttered Snape, with a decidedly pleased look on his face.

* * *

It hadn't been hard for Vanessa to get herself Snape for a guardian, after his application as a candidate. Amelia Bones was as fair and kind as Vanessa ever remembered her being, and, after Vanessa (much to Snape's simultaneous dismay and pleasure) had spoken of how close her mother and Snape had once been, and how Snape had come to visit her in St. Mungo's, and how she was grateful to him, and glad of the opportunity to get to know someone who had known her mother so intimately...well, Amelia had been very moved, and she had given Snape guardianship rights over Vanessa without hesitation. And though the Weasleys were disappointed by Vanessa's change of mind (something that still caused Vanessa no end of guilt), they had, in the end, accepted it, and had offered Vanessa the opportunity to come and visit the Burrow if ever she so desired.

It was harder than Vanessa could have imagined, being in peacetime once again. She still retained her tendency to wake up at night screaming, she still retained her tendency to react (sometimes very violently) to unexpected sounds or touches, and she still retained her tendency to burst into tears at the most random of times over the loss of her wife, and...at her worst...her daughter, Violet. Still, living with Snape in Hogwarts castle, the last week of August prior to school's start, it wasn't all bad. Wasn't all mope and angst. Vanessa had the joy of, as she thought of it, "domesticating" Snape again. It was challenging at times, but it was also rewarding. Amazing. Incredible. And, most of all...healing. This duality was something Vanessa had taken more and more note of. That the things that hurt her, frustrated her, upset her, were also the things that helped her, that brought her joy and hope and love again. And she embraced this as much as she could, without the hurt overwhelming her, and overshadowing the joy.

Both Vanessa and Snape stayed away from Dumbledore, kept tight lips and hard eyes whenever the old man graced them with his presence (after, of course, Snape had taken a good hour out his time to berate and confront the old man on the whole Dursley situation, which had been quite a sight for Vanessa to see, and was one she had not been able to appreciate when she had witnessed it in the original timeline). Or, when _they_ had to grace _him_ with _their_ presence - an unavoidable eventuality, in all honesty, as Dumbledore _was_ Headmaster, and Vanessa and Snape were student and teacher, respectively.

Dumbledore was perplexed by their behavior, of course, but not upset, not troubled. At least, not in any way a normal human would be troubled by this silent treatment and cold-shoulder-ing. No, Dumbledore, Vanessa knew, was only troubled by it because it meant that he would have zero chance of making any of his plans in regards to her - to both of them, really; and boy, had Snape been pissed when Vanessa had told him about how Dumbledore had asked him to risk his life again and again, only to ask him to help him with his suicide, and let Snape take all the blame and fallout that had resulted afterwards, including the loss of Vanessa's trust, faith, and love, for a time.

And, of course, in Vanessa and Snape's spare time, among other things that they did together, they hunted Horcruxes. They managed to obtain and destroy three before school began - the ring, from the Gaunt shack (though, both had been sorely tempted to leave it be, and let the idiotic Dumbledore try and wear it again a few years down the line); the diadem, from the Room of Requirement (by far the easiest); and the locket (getting into an empty Grimmauld Place that wasn't even yet under the Fidelius was relatively simple). As for the Horcrux inside of Vanessa herself - a fact that had horrified Snape to no end - they, or rather, _she_ , had made a tactical decision to leave it where it was...for now (for she had learned how to remove Horcruxes safely from living beings in the future - a revelation through reading that had only increased her hatred and disgust for Dumbledore - and so she could destroy it any old time). For the time being, at least, it was too good an advantage to pass up, the ability to sense and - later, when the growth grew more powerful - actually see where Voldemort was, feel what he was feeling, and even know what he was thinking, at any given time.

The more protected Horcruxes, the diary and the cup (the former of which was inside Malfoy Manor somewhere, and the latter of which was in a vault in the depths of Gringotts), would be impossible to obtain without either a full on assault of their resting places, or a really good infiltration plan that would take some time to come up with - and would also most likely involve either Polyjuice Potion or invisibility. Or both.

That critical need for the ability to be totally invisible being one of several important reasons for Vanessa's current course of action, just an hour before the students would be arriving at Hogwarts for the Welcoming Feast: knocking on the Headmaster's office door (the sweets-based password had been easy enough to guess; she had gotten it on her second try). Tossing her ponytail behind her head, she pushed open the door and strode into the office a solid two seconds before Dumbledore even started to say, "Enter."

Dumbledore, obviously seeing his chance to try and start up his manipulation-of-a-child game (seeing as it had been postponed for a good week now, what with Vanessa's avoidance of him), put on a wide smile and activated that damned twinkle-eyed Charm of his, and said quite jovially, "Vanessa, what brings you here? Is there anything I can do for you?" as if she _hadn't_ been avoiding him all week, as if she _hadn't_ gotten into his office despite that there was a password that she could not _possibly_ have known, and as if _he_ wasn't at all surprised by this most unexpected of interruptions.

Well, Vanessa was going to _make him_ show some surprise. "My father's cloak, I know you have it - give it to me." she demanded. Still, nothing. Dumbledore remained calm, composed. Unfazed. Damn the old bastard! She kept up a steady glare (and refused to flinch) as, wordlessly, Dumbledore drew his wand out of his robes, and gave it a flick in her direction. In the air before her appeared the familiar Cloak of Invisibility. The cloak that was her birthright. The cloak that had been lost - stolen from her by a young thief of a girl (seemingly the fate that awaited all Hallows) - in the original timeline when she was nineteen. Vanessa, taking a leaf out of Dumbledore's book, snatched the cloak out of the air and stalked out of the office without a word. Or, at least, that was what she had intended to do. On reaching the door, Vanessa found it to be locked.

 _No!_ she thought, in both parts rage, and blossoming fear and panic, for this was something that, as with her nightmares, with her flashbacks, whether visual or kinesthetic, would never go away. Being locked anywhere, whether in a ballroom, or in an office such as this...it always... _always_ stirred up memories of being locked up in a tiny cupboard under the stairs for the first eleven years of her life in the original timeline. That she knew very well that she had dozens of means of escaping this office at her disposal - whether by brute force or by a few inconspicuous spells - and that she knew that, despite all that Albus Dumbledore had been before his death in the first timeline, and now again, here in the past, the manipulative old man did not bear her any ill will, and that she knew that her emotions that she now felt so intensely, so overwhelmingly, were born of nothing logical, nothing _present_...none of that mattered. All of these facts, all of this knowledge, everything left Vanessa's mind, heart, and soul in the face of the fact that she was...once again...trapped.

Taking many deep, steadying breaths, fighting hopelessly against her body's reaction to the situation even as she knew it was just that - hopeless - Vanessa turned around, and faced Dumbledore once more, who remained sitting at his desk, looking at her with those blue eyes that were so...dispassionate.

"Let me out." Vanessa breathed, feeling very acutely the quivering of her shoulders and her knees.

"I am truly sorry, but I won't allow you to leave until I know...why you bear me such animosity." Dumbledore said slowly, peering at her almost...coldly. Certainly speculatively, and not at all kindly. "Could you tell me, what have I done to deserve this treatment from you this past week, Vanessa, when we have never before met?"

Vanessa, rather than justify herself to the very man who had given her _reason_ to behave as she was, gathered herself at the rush of rage and disdain that the Headmaster's words had triggered within her (rage and disdain enough to overpower her panic, her terror, and overthrow her paralysis), drew her wand, spun back towards the door, and reduced it to splinters with a Blasting Curse. And then, furthermore, before the old man could do a thing to stop her, she fled. Down the spiral staircase, through the corridors, until at last she found refuge in an empty classroom. There, she warded the door with, among many other spells, a barrier spell that would not exist for another fifteen years and, more to the point, would have no COUNTERspell for another fifteen years, and then...she waited. Waited, and wrapped herself in her invisibility cloak, and cried, silently, to herself.

But though Vanessa cried, her tears were not tears of sorrow, nor even were they tears born of rage, as sometimes happened in her most furious of moments. These tears were the aftermath, the residue of the situation she had been in back in the headmaster's office on the whole, bleeding out of her body, out of her soul, draining, to leave in their wake a woman exhausted, but also a woman no longer overwhelmed with the thoughts and the emotions and, yes, even the memories, that she did not want to hear, feel, or see before her eyes, respectively.

It took her the better part of half an hour do this. To wash away all that was inside of her - all that meeting the Headmaster again, face to face, and oh so personally had done to her - but at the end of it, Vanessa was a woman with a clear and light mind and heart (respectively), and she was thus able to turn her thoughts to the feast that would be starting any minute now, as well as to the fact that she would be seeing her friends again. Hermione and Ron. But not just them. There were other friends, other people, that Vanessa would be seeing again for the first time in far too long. Neville, Dean and Seamus, Lavender...and, of course, most anticipated and simultaneously dreaded of all...her wife, Pansy.

And then there were others who were to be dreaded, yet for entirely different reasons, such as the Patil twins, whom Vanessa knew she would look at every day for the next seven years and think, how could you have become what you did? The same, Vanessa knew, would go for Cho, because as much as Vanessa hated - no, beyond hate, something there was no word to even describe - the woman Cho had been in the original timeline, the woman who had murdered Vanessa's daughter in her own bedroom, Vanessa could not displace those feelings upon the innocent little girl that Cho was now, here, in the past. And even if she had, even if she did...Vanessa never would have been able to bring herself to harm the girl for the crimes of her future self, because to harm a child...that would have been becoming like Cho herself, as well as like the Dursleys, and that, Vanessa would never allow for herself, no matter what feelings, what thoughts, no matter what agony, what memories...no matter.

 _No matter...?_ a soft, echoing, and very clearly amused voice suddenly chuckled, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. At the same time, Vanessa felt an intense, agonizing sense of _cold_ seize her heart, so much so that she let out an involuntary gasp, and her hand moved automatically to the center of her chest. _Is that_ really _what you believe? After what you witnessed in the old man's office? He hasn't changed...so why should Cho have? The woman who slit your daughter's throat in her own bedroom..?_

"Whoever you are, show yourself!" Vanessa snarled, leaping to her feet and bringing her wand up into a standard combat readiness position, even as she realized that she knew the voice, recognized the speaker. It was deep within her memory, buried under years upon years worth of them...but she did know it, and she knew it enough to realize, as well, that it was _not_ someone who wanted to fill her life with rainbows and sunshine.

 _Ah, but Vanessa, I've been here all along..._ the voice, so incredibly soft, so soothing, and yet so _dark_ came again, issuing from the walls, the air, and, also...from within Vanessa herself. _Watching, waiting...taking in all your memories, all your emotions, everything you have to give._ Another soft chuckle filled the room, and Vanessa found her insides brushed with iciness. T _here was nothing to do about the child-you; she was broken - far too much for me to make any use of her - but you...? A woman, an adult, come back from a terrible future in which she lost everything and everyone she ever knew and loved, and yet remains as fierce and as firm as ever? You're...complex, strong, powerful, and...filled with such untapped potential._

"You're crazy!" snapped Vanessa, even as another jolt of that icy cold shot through her body, straight to her heart. Or was it straight _from_ her heart...? "Tell me who you are. Better yet, _show me where you are_ so I can end you."

 _Oh?_ the soft, echoing, and yes, somehow familiar voice chuckled again. _Yes, that_ is _your goal, isn't it? To end me? But surely you know by now that for every step you take to end me, I will take two more to ensure my survival._

"Voldemort?" Vanessa hissed, as at last the realization came to her. The impossible realization. And yet...she felt the truth of it, somehow. "What are you doing to me? Have you learned some new tricks? Feed pain through the bond? Talk to me through the bond? How could you? Unless..."

 _Oh, you don't have to worry about_ that. _I'm not from the future._ Voldemort's soft voice answered carelessly - answered her _thoughts_ carelessly, as if they were his own. _Although, that is an interesting idea, and one I'm sure my future self would have explored, were he to have been made aware of it. No, what I am, who I am, you should know. You should realize it - quite quickly, in fact. You're not unintelligent, after all. Even I recognize_ that.

"So, you're the Horcrux inside me." Vanessa did not hold back a scoff at the realization. "Just a splintered, weak piece of soul. What could you possibly do to me? Will you keep flinging words at me the rest of my life? Because, let me tell you, there's nothing you could say to convince me to-" A stabbing of cold struck her heart, so intense, and so utterly agonizing, that an unbidden cry of pain left her lips, and she found herself down on her hands and knees, head bowed, with fresh tears worming their way out of her eyes.

 _Am I so weak, now?_ the Horcux mocked. _I told you: I've been drinking in your memories, your emotions, your conflicts, your fears, and I've grown for it - grown powerful._

"Not powerful enough." Vanessa retorted, though with admitted difficulty, and much lack of breath. "I can still get rid of you any time I want. I could do it right fucking now! Just one little spell, and you're gone."

 _Perhaps you could have, but that was before,_ countered the Horcrux, with cool satisfaction. _Have you not been listening? I've fed upon your memories, upon your emotions - the very things that make up your soul, and your very sense of self - and in doing so, I have become fused with your soul, affixed to it, and no longer simply reside loosely within your body. I am now a part of your soul, you cannot just get rid of me, not anymore, and I'd urge you not to try, for that would spell the end for the both of us._

"You think that'll stop me?" Vanessa laughed, with no small amount of derision. "If you've really been feeding on my memories of the future, you'd know that I've tried to kill myself more than once over the years. And before you tell me that that was different, that I was overcome with emotion, and that doing it here and now would be a _cold_ , _calculated_ suicide that I couldn't possibly have the guts to perform, let _me_ tell _you_ that Hermione, Ron, Mynne, and Sev all know the future, and they're all working to stop it. So," Vanessa smirked. "in other words...I can afford to kill myself to get rid of you, and the threat you pose to our mission."

The Horcrux made a soft, pondering noise, as if it had a mouth to breathe with - or air to breathe in. _I wonder...did Albus Dumbledore tell himself that very same thing...when he came up with his plan to use you to destroy me in the original timeline? To sacrifice an innocent little girl, one who had already suffered so much at the hands of her Muggle relatives...? Did he tell himself that it was right, justified, because he would be saving thousands of lives by sacrificing your one?_

"Of course he told himself that." muttered Vanessa grudgingly, rising to her feet, and beginning the process of nonverbally undoing all the enchantments she had placed upon the door to the classroom. "He's a fucking hypocrite."

 _And you're not?_ the Horcux spoke again, sounding highly amused.

Vanessa paused in the act of reaching for the doorknob, teeth bared to give a decidedly biting response, and then...she relaxed, and laughed lightly. "Listen, I have a feast to attend, so if you could do me a favor and shut up for the foreseeable future, I'd really appreciate that."

 _By all means, go on: enjoy your feast, enjoy your friends._ the Horcrux replied, in mock accommodation. Mock compliance. _I'll be here when you're finally ready to submit to me._

Vanessa said nothing in response as she fully covered herself in her invisibility cloak and left the classroom, and she further maintained her silence as she headed down to the Great Hall for the Welcoming Feast. But though she refrained from speaking, she could not stop herself from _thinking_. And even as she thought, she wondered whether or not the Horcrux was listening in. Given what he - it - had said to her about leeching off of her traumas and passions to gain strength, she thought that there was a high probability of that. And if that were so...if Vanessa could truly hide nothing from the Horcrux...

Well, that wasn't an issue, in her eyes. So long as the Horcrux stayed contained within her, stayed a part of her, he could hurt and trouble no one but her, and she would gladly accept that burden if it meant protecting everyone around her from his plans, from his manipulations and his dark fury. However, Vanessa could not discount the possibility that, eventually, the Horcrux would grow strong enough to do what the diary Horcrux had done to Ginny in the original timeline, and actually possess her mind and her body, or even further, and do as it had done down in the Chamber of Secrets, and project itself onto the world as a not-quite-a-ghost-but-not-quite-a-living-thing. Or, even worse still...drain Vanessa of her very lifeforce, and craft for itself a real, true, physical body with that lifeforce (again, as it had attempted to do with Ginny).

And then there was the shared connection between Vanessa and Voldemort to worry about. Both could peer into each other's minds, see through each other's eyes, sense each other's emotions. What if the Horcrux contacted Voldemort through that link? What if it fed its main self information on Vanessa, and on her friends, and on their true nature as time travelers? Hell, even its sending mere memories of the original timeline to the main Voldemort would have terrible consequences. A Voldemort who could analyze all that he had done, see what had gone wrong, what he had missed or overlooked, and then do as Vanessa was doing and act to alter the course of history in his favor...A Voldemort with future spells at his disposal...A Voldemort with the knowledge of just who among his own ranks were spies, traitors, cowards, or double agents, like Snape...

Vanessa could hardly stand to think about all that Voldemort could do if he learned all there was to learn within her mind, and truthfully, she had no idea how she would even begin to counter it. She had never mastered Occlumency, had merely learned to drive Voldemort out of herself by way of intense emotions unknown to him via their soul connection, such as love and grief. But she had never truly, properly learned to protect her mind. She was willing to learn how, now, if it meant keeping herself and her secrets safe, but what worried her was whether or not her learning Occlumency would also prevent the Horcrux inside of her from sending out information to Voldemort. Would the shield around her mind act as a containment field whenever the Horcrux attempted to, through accessing her mind, contact _Voldemort's_ mind, or would the Horcrux bypass her hypothetical barriers entirely?

The only single, concrete thing Vanessa had come up with by the end of all this musing - by the time she found herself in the entrance hall, wherein there were not yet teachers, no waiting McGonagall, and from where she could hear the first years that were to be her classmates making their way across the Hogwarts grounds in the distance - was that these matters would all require much, much more thought, research, and analysis. Though not, of course, experimentation and testing. Never those. For Vanessa knew that to test such things would only end in that which she feared could occur.


End file.
